Receive him in our English tongue;
I send thee, but with weeping eyes,
The story that he sung.
Thy Tory is fallen, thy dear land
Is marred beneath the spoilers heel,
I can not trust my trembling hand
To write the things I feel.
Ah, realm of tombs, but let her bear
This blazon to the last of times;
No nation rose so white and fair,
Or fell so pure of crimes.
The widow's moan, the orphan's wail
Come round thee; yet in truth be strong;
Eternal right, though all else fail,
Can never be made wrong.
An Angel's heart, an Angel's mouth,
Not Homer's, could atone for me,
Hymn well the great Confederate South,
Virginia first, and Lee.
On occasions like this our hearts turn to one who was imprisoned, manacled and treated with many indignities, although no more responsible for the action of the Southern States than other public men. His persecutors were unable to bring him to trial. The text books on the Constitution taught at West Point stood in the way. For the Chief Magistracy of the young republic, that arose so full of hope and noble purposes and died so free of crime, the Commonwealth of Mississippi gave Jefferson Davis; soldier, statesman and vicarious sufferer, for a people who will cherish his memory so long as valor has a votary or virtue a shrine.