Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1870-12-09
gelerteh puetry.
From the New Eclectic Magazine.
A MEMORIAL ODE
Composed on the Occasion Of the Death and
Burial of
ROBERT EDMUND LEE.

Burial of
ROBERT EDMUND LEE.
BY SAMUEL sELDEN.
On this October morn, soft, golden, fair,
With toll of bells, the cannon's measured
boom,
Amid the pomp of Autumn leaves, we bear
Our hero to the tomb.
Virginia weeps a mournful concourse comes
To do the chieftain homage, deep, sincere,
Yet not with arms reversed and muff1ed drums,
| Or braZen trumpet's blare,
But bearing garlands twined in beauty showers,
! And wet with pious tears o er valor shed,
Affections sweetest offering, choicest flowers,
With which to strew his bed
A narrow vault, within devotions pile,
! Where hallowed memories clustering scent
the air,
Where once at morn and eve he trod its aisle,
And knelt in chapel prayer.
There rest but not alone, since near, in sight
Thy great Lieutenant slumbers, where the
showers
And dews keep green his turf, and love doth
write
His epitaph in flowers.
There rest O wearied one but not alone;
From ocean wave to purple mountain dell,
They sleep who bore thy banner, and unknown
To thee in battle fell.
Arouse, We sleepers from your pillows start
Since he who shared in life your toll and fare
Your loved commander comes, but with stilled
heart,
Your bed of dust to share.
No more for him or you the midnight tramp,
The bivouac, the march thro sun and SHOWS,
The sleepless post, the trench and tented camp:
Yours now long repose.
No reveille shall break his slumber deep,
Nor tattoo with alarm there smite his ears
There pilgrims from all climes will kneel and
weep,
And stars keep watch through years.
Yea, Fame shall DER his dust stand sentinel:
Although the cause he lost, her sword now
sheathed,
Virginia holds him dear as though he fell
A victor, laurel-wreathed.
A high and solemn purpose that ne'er quails
Before contingencies or hostile frown,
Yet through adversely or weakness fails,
Is in itself crown.
Not he who sleeps and sows not fruitful grain;
Wasting in dreams the dewy hours of morn;
But he who grasps the plough nor turns again,
HOards wine and oil and corn;
Not be who waits on favors from the gods,
On chance or golden planets in the sky;
But he who wills and dares against all odds,
Is child of destiny.
Brave eagle-souls oft soil their wings with gore,
And flap in vain against their prison bars,
These walls of clay from which in thought they
Beyond and through the stars.
Yet better to aspire than delve or grope,
Or to the valleys dust and vapors cling,
W hen skies and mountains offer ample scope
To stretch the spirits wing. 4
So thought the pure and lofty Genoese,
After his sights at Court of proud Castillo;
His caravel at last ploughs shoreless seas
With frail yet daring keel:
His soul long heaved and tossed with hopes and
fears,
Wearied in strivings with his little band,
Dismissed its griefs and doubts when on his ears
The lookout cried, "Land-land -
So Calico thought, when with rapt soul,
| From his lone watch-tower, wet with mid
night dew,
With his rude tube he scanned the worlds that
In splendor through the blue;
Whilst he, in awe, would blazing comets trace,
| Suns moons and planets in their noiseless
! grooves,
Thrilled with the new apocalypse of space
lie shouts, 'It moves it moves ~
Great souls oft will and dare, yet ne er achieve;
Acestes-like, perchance they aim too high
| Their arrows miss the stars, yet dazzling leave
Bright trails along the sky.
Thus Sir John Franklin willed, and boldly
steered
Insoitude through icebergs, calm and breeze;
With dauntless courage, inch by inch he neared
| Those unknown, fabled seas,
Where darkness broods nor ever blooms rose,
Auroral lights like spectral banners wave,
Allured him 'er drear fields of pathless SHOWS
To find life's goal-the grave.
So fought the noble Greek, Leonidas,
When Persian hordes were darkening land
| and sea,
With hundreds checked dense legions at the
| pass
| Of old Thermopyla;
His gallant band, through treachery, expires
| A patriot and leader true and brave,
He chose the graves, the ashes of his sires
| Rather than be slave.
So fought the knightly LEE until o'erthrown,
| With shattered columns and batttlions scant;
He wrestled not with marshalled hosts alone,
| But sickness, hunger, want.
Though crushed in battle, homeless in the world,
| He saw his armies scattered in retreat,
Their guns all stacked, their tattered banners
| furled- .s -
He vanquished even defeat.
He saw his Mother rent, of hope bereft,
Discrowned, in chains, yet with her fame un-
! soiled:
ONLY her plorious memories were left
Her very graves despoiled.
By gentle acts, rare fortitude, and prayer,
Without repinings in adversely,
He showed how Christian virtue should upbea1
Beneath calamity.
With silvered head and in his fame full noon,
The peerless captain of the bloody strife,
He leaves posterity the priceless boon,
A grand, heroic life.
His deeds shall live on canvass and in stone,
In pictured chronicles and ballad strains;