Spirit Of Jefferson

OUR Dead, Colonel x Hoa

"My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves."

"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing: but inwardly they are ravening wolves."

"It was the worst work that Satan and sin undertook in this world, and they that suffered in it were not martyrs in a good cause, but convicts in a bad one. Who shall comfort them that sit by dishonored graves?"—Sermon of Henry Ward Beecher.

Vile brutal man! and darest thou In God's anointed place to preach,
With impious tongue and brazen brow,
The lessons Hell would blush to teach?

The cruel taunt thy lips hath hissed Beneath Religion's holy screen
Is false—as false as Iscariot's kiss;
Is false—as thou art vile and mean.

Are these the lessons which He taught?
And was His mission here in vain?
Peace and good will seem words of naught
Hell rules the earth with hate again!

And thou! its chosen instrument,
Hyena like, with heartless tread,
Hast dared invade, with blood-hound scent,
The sacred precincts of the dead

Not such from those, dear, brave old South;
Who met thee in thine hour of might!
But from the coarse, polluted mouth
Of coward curs who feared to fight.

Dear, loved old South! contemn the curse
That those who hate shall heap on you;
You've wept behind War's bloody hearse
That bore away your brave and true!

Their precious blood, though vainly shed,
Long as thy shore old Ocean laves,
We'll bow with reverence o'er our dead,
And bless the turf that wraps their graves.

From Mexico to Maryland
Those graves are strewn like autumn leaves—
What though no mother's tender hand
Upon their tomb a chaplet weaves.

Nor wives, nor sisters bend above
The Honored Soldier's unmarked mound—
They are objects of eternal love
In consecrated Southern ground.

It recks not where their bodies lie—
By bloody hill side, plain or river
Their names are bright on Fame's proud sky,
Their deeds of valor live forever.

The song-birds of the South shall sing
From forests grand, and flowery stem,
And gentlest waters murmuring,
Unite to hymn their requiem,

And Spring will deck their hallowed bed
With types of resurrection's day;
And silent tears the Night hath shed,
The Morning's beam will kiss away.

Those heroes rest in solemn fame
On every field where Freedom bled;
And shall we let the touch of shame
Fall like a blight upon our dead?

No—wretch! we scorn thy hatred now.
And hiss thy shame from pole to pole,
The brutes are better, far, than thou,
And Hell would blush to own thy soul.

"Dishonored graves?" take back the lie
That's breathed by more than human hate,
Lest Ananias-like, you die,
Not less deserving of his fate

Our Spartan women bow in dust,
Around their country's broken shrine;
True—as their souls are noble—just,
Pure—as their deeds have been divine;

Their angel hands—the wounded cheered—
Did all that woman ever dares—
When wealth and homes had disappeared;
They gave us tears, and smiles, and prayers,

They proudly gave their jewels up—
For all they loved as worthless toys;
Drank to the dregs Want's bitter cup
To feed our sick and starving boys.

Their glorious flag on high no more
Is borne by that unconquered band;
'Tis furled upon the "silent shore".
Its heroes still around it stand.

No more beneath its folds shall meet
The armies of immortal Lee;
The rolling of their drum's last beat
Is echoing in eternity.

Galveston, Texas, 1866.