Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume VIII. National Spirit. 1904. | | | | IV. Peace | | Ode Sung on the Occasion of Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead | | Henry Timrod (1828–1867) |
| | [At Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S. C.] |
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SLEEP sweetly in your humble graves,— | |
| Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause! | |
| Though yet no marble column craves | |
| The pilgrim here to pause, | |
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| In seeds of laurel in the earth | 5 |
| The blossom of your fame is blown, | |
| And somewhere, waiting for its birth, | |
| The shaft is in the stone! | |
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| Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years | |
| Which keep in trust your storied tombs, | 10 |
| Behold! your sisters bring their tears, | |
| And these memorial blooms. | |
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| Small tributes! but your shades will smile | |
| More proudly on these wreaths to-day, | |
| Then when some cannon-moulded pile | 15 |
| Shall overlook this bay. | |
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| Stoop, angels, hither from the skies! | |
| There is no holier spot of ground | |
| Than where defeated valor lies, | |
| By mourning beauty crowned! | 20 | | |
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