The Clopton Chronicles

A Project of the Clopton Family Genealogical Society

 

 

 

OUR CONFEDERATE DEAD!

What the Heart of a Young Girl Said to a Dead Soldier

By James R. Randall[1]

 

Unknown to me, brave boy, but still I wreathe

                For you the tenderest of wildwood flowers;

And o’re your tomb a virgin’s prayer I breathe,

                To greet the pure moon and the April showers.

 

I only know, I only care to know,

You died for me – for me and country bled;

A thousand Springs and wild December snow

Will weep for one of all the Southern dead.

 

Perhaps some mother gazes up the skies,

Wailing, like Rachel, for her martyred brave –

Oh, for her darling sake, my dewy eyes

Moisten the turn above your lowly grave.

 

The cause is sacred, when our maidens stand

                Linked with sad matrons and heroic sires,

Above relics of a vanquished land

                And Light the torch of sanctifying fire

And the cross of death is o’er.

Where the Oriflamme is burning

On the starlit Edenshore!

 

 

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[1] War Songs and Poems of the Southern Confederacy, 1861-1865, A Collection of the Most Popular and Impressive Songs and Poems of War Times, Dear to Every Southern Heart, Collected and Retold with Personal Reminiscences of the War by H. M. Wharton, D.D., p. 62