A Grave in
Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond
by
Charles Henry Phelps (1820�1897) |
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I READ the marble-lettered name,
And half in
bitterness I said:
"As Dante from Ravenna came,
Our
poet came from exile�dead."
And yet, had it been asked of
him
Where he would rather lay his head,
This spot he
would have chosen. Dim
The city's hum drifts o'er his
grave,
And green above the hollies wave
Their jagged
leaves, as when a boy,
On blissful summer afternoons,
He came to sing the birds his runes,
And tell the river
of his joy.
Who dreams that in his wanderings wide,
By stern misfortunes tossed and driven,
His soul's
electric strands were riven
From home and country? Let
betide
What might, what would, his boast, his pride,
Was in his stricken mother-land,
That could but bless and
bid him go,
Because no crust was in her hand
To stay
her children's need. We know
The mystic cable sank too
deep
For surface storm or stress to strain,
Or from
his answering heart to keep
The spark from flashing back
again!
Think of the thousand mellow rhymes,
The
pure idyllic passion-flowers,
Wherewith, in far gone,
happier times,
He garlanded this South of ours.
Proven�al-like, he wandered long,
And sang at many a
stranger's board,
Yet 't was Virginia's name that poured
The tenderest pathos through his song.
We owe the Poet
praise and tears,
Whose ringing ballad sends the brave,
Bold Stuart riding down the years�
What have we given
him? Just a grave! |
By Charles Henry Phelps (1820�1897)
Listed March 2, 2013Honoring J.E.B Stuart, a fallen Civil War hero who
fought for the South with U.S.
Army roots from West Point.
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