THE WASHINGTON MEMORIAL ODE.

Certain events, like architects, build up

Viewless cathedrals, in whose aisles the cup

Of some impressive sacrament is kist —

Where thankful nations taste the Eucharist.

Pressed to their lips by some heroic Past

Enthroned like Pontiff in the temple vast —

Where incense rises t'wards the dome sublime

From golden censers in the hands of Time —

Where through the smoke some sculptured saint appears

Crowned with the glories of historic years;

Before whose shrine whole races tell their beads —

From whose pale front each sordid thought recedes,

Gliding away like white and stealthy ghost,

As Memory rears it's consecrated Host,

As blood and body of a sacred name

Make the last supper of some deathless fame.

This the event! Here springs the temple grand,

Whose mighty arches take in all the land!

Its twilight aisles stretch far away and reach

‘ Mid lights and shadows which defy my speech:

And near its portal which Morn opened wide —

Grey Janitor!— to let in all this tide

Of prayerful men, most solemnly there stands

One recollection, which, for pious hands

Is ready like the Minster's sculptured vase,

With holy water for each reverent face.

And mystic columns, which my fancy views,

Glow in a thousand soft, subduing hues

Flung through the stained windows of the Past in gloom,

Of royal purple o'er our warrior's tomb.

Oh, proud old Commonwealth! thy sacred name

Makes frequent music on the lips of Fame!

And as the nation, in its onward march,

Thunders beneath the Union's mighty arch,

Thine the bold front which every patriot sees

The stateliest figure on its massive frieze.

Oh, proud old State! well may thy form be grand,

‘ Twas thine to give a Savior to the land.

For, in the past, when upward rose the cry,

“Save or we perish!” thine‘ twas to supply

The master-spirit of the storm whose will

Said to the billows in their wrath: “Be still!”

And though a great calm followed, yet the age

In which he saw that mad tornado rage

Made in its cares and wild tempestuous strife

One solemn Passion of his noble life.

This day, then, Countrymen of all the year,

We well may claim to be without a peer:

Amid the rest — impalpable and vast —

It stands a Cheops looming through the past,

Close to the rushing, patriotic Nile

Which here o'erflows our hearts to make them smile

With a rich harvest of devoted zeal,

Men of Virginia, for the Common-weal!

And to our Bethlehem ye who come to-day —

Ye who compose this multitude's array —

Ye who are here from mighty Northern marts

With frankincense and myrrh within your hearts —

Ye who are here from the gigantic West,

The offspring nurtured at Virginia's breast,

Which in development by magic seems

Straight to embody all that Progress dreams —

Ye who are here from summer-wedded lands —

From Carolina's woods to Tampa's sands,

From Florida to Texas broad and free

Where spreads the prairie, like a dark, green sea —

Ye whose bold fathers from Virginia went

In wilds to pitch brave enterprise's tent,

Spreading our faith and social system wide,

By which we stand peculiarly allied!—

Ye Southern men, whose work is but begun,

Whose course is on t'ward regions of the sun,

Whose brave battalions moved to tropic sods

Solemn and certain as though marching gods

Were ordered in their circumstance and state

Beneath the banner of resistless Fate!

Ye have been welcomed, Countrymen, by him

Beside whose speech my rhetoric grows dim —

Whose thoughts are flint and steel — whose words are flame,

For they all stir us like some hero's name:

But once again the Commonwealth extends

Her open hand in welcome to her friends;

Come ye from North, or South, or West, or East,

No bull's head enters at Virginia's feast.

And ye who've journeyed hither from afar,

Know that fair Freedom's liquid morning star

Still sheds its glories in a thousand beams,

Gilding our forests, fountains, mountains, streams,

With light as luminous as on that morn

When the Messiah of the land was born.

Then as we here partake the mystic rites

To which his memory like a priest invites;

Kneeling beside the altars of this day,

Let every heart subdued one moment pray,