Dear are the dead we weep for; Dear are the strong hearts broken! Proudly their memory we keep for Our help and hope; a token Of sacred thought too deep for Words that leave it unspoken. All that we know of fairest, All that we have of meetest, Here we lay down for the rarest Doers whose souls rose fleetest And in their homes of air rest, Ranked with the truest and sweetest. Days, with fiery-hearted, bold advances; Nights in dim and shadowy, swift retreat; Rains that rush with bright, embattled lances; Thunder, booming round your stirless feet;-- Winds that set the orchard with sweet fancies All abloom, or ripple the ripening wheat; Moonlight, starlight, on your mute graves falling; Dew, distilled as tears unbidden flow;-- Dust of drought in drifts and layers crawling; Lulling dreams of softly whispering snow; Happy birds, from leafy coverts calling;-- These go on, yet none of these you know: Hearing not our human voices Speaking to you all in vain, Nor the psalm of a land that rejoices, Ringing from churches and cities and foundries a mighty refrain! But we, and the sun and the birds, and the breezes that blow When tempests are striving and lightnings of heaven are spent, With one consent Make unto them Who died for us eternal requiem. XI Lovely to look on, O South, No longer stately-scornful But beautiful still in pride, Our hearts go out to you as toward a bride! Garmented soft in white, Haughty, and yet how love-imbuing and tender! You stand before us with your gently mournful Memory-haunted eyes and flower-like mouth, Where clinging thoughts--as bees a-cluster Murmur through the leafy gloom, Musical in monotone-- Whisper sadly. Yet a lustre As of glowing gold-gray light Shines upon the orient bloom, Sweet with orange-blossoms, thrown Round the jasmine-starred, deep night Crowning with dark hair your brow. Ruthless, once, we came to slay, And you met us then with hate. Rough was the wooing of war: we won you, Won you at last, though late! Dear South, to-day, As our country's altar made us One forever, so we vow Unto yours our love to render: Strength with strength we here endow, And we make your honor ours. Happiness and hope shall sun you: All the wiles that half betrayed us Vanish from us like spent showers. XII