Classic Poem

There is a humble spot at Lexington —
The grave of Stonewall Jackson, near the Church
He loved, and worshipped in. From Chancellorsville
To Richmond his beloved form was borne
For public funeral honors. Thence it passed
To this the city of his previous years.
And when the war was ended, and Lee went
To Lexington upon his new emprise,
This spot was dear to him. To it ofttimes
He strolled, and with bared head beside it stood,
Letting the winds blow round him and high thoughts
Possess his heart and dim his lifted eyes.

It was a spur to memory working sweet
Into life's bitter. 'Twas a wakener
Of olden comradeship and sympathy.
And over it at times he seemed to hear
A bugler's reveille that called again
Afar and faint his spirit unto arms
And victory across the shining dawn.

Death flings no silence round the listening heart.
Music that is of love's rememberance
Resistless breaks over the dikes of dust.
Who only at the Easter time perceives
Angels before the doors of sepulchers
Chanting the message of the endless life,
Has missed the daily joy that might have been
His for the longing, for the faith, the look.

At Stonewall Jackson's grave! But he was not
One of the earthlies now. God's miracle
Had come to flesh, to spirit, freedoming
The Immortal for the new habiliments.

There at the place where the white highways meet
Out of the blue o'er which Love's couriers pass,
Lee found not Jackson, but he found himself.
No man can find himself till he has seen
His life's perspectives pierce eternity
O'er death and dust into the Bosom of God.
At Stonewall Jackson's grave Lee found his soul
And all the meaning and content of it,
And vision worth the past's deliriums,
Two Angels of Consolement, — one who cried
" He is noThere for he is risen, " — and one
Who voiced the reconcilement mystical
Of prayers 'gainst prayers that stormed the throne of God.
Jackson had prayed. His grave brought back to Lee
His great Lieutenant's deep religiousness.
Lincoln had also prayed importunately,
As Lee knew well, feeling the endless rhythms.
Each prayed for victory which could come to one,
But not to both. And now the martyr twain
Were side by side beholding in high light
Each other, and the Christ. And Lee, their own,
Of the same spiritual order, bowed
At Stonewall Jackson's grave, and understood
The mystery of answered prayer, — the while
His fine and questing nature felt the hues
Or rainbows beating through grief's mist, and heard
Love's delicately brooding missioners
Choiring redemption's reconcilement strains.

At Stonewall Jackson's grave Lee saw man's pride
Cindered, his glory dust, and ruin round
Of might that counts on might save as it comes
An effluence out of Truth's dominion sky.
Such he beheld about the historic spot
Where rest of faith engulfed his restlessness.
He felt the presence of Life's witnesses
To Death's complete defeat, the grave's likewise.
He the Defeated had perceived the Power
That swept a Nation into triumph's course
Before his shattered armies. Now he saw
His foes to all he counted as of worth
Conquered by Life and Love and Miracle.
And out of every battle of his spirit
At Stonewall Jackson's grave Lee rode victorious,
Leading the deathless Columns of his Hope,
And hearing midst God's White Battalions
The everlasting Trumpets of his Dreams.