Lee wore the gray! since then 'Tis Right's and Honor's hue! He honored it, that man of men, And wrapped it round the true. Dead! but his spirit breathes! Dead! but his heart is ours! Dead! but his sunny and sad land wreathes His crown with tears for flowers. A statue for his tomb! Mould it of marble white! For Wrong, a spectre of death and doom; An angel of hope for Right. But Lee has a thousand graves In a thousand hearts, I ween; And teardrops fall from our eyes in waves That will keep his memory green. Ah! Muse, you dare not claim A nobler man than he, Nor nobler man hath less of blame, Nor blameless man hath purer name, Nor purer name hath grander fame, Nor fame -- another Lee. Fragments from an Epic Poem A Mystery His face was sad; some shadow must have hung Above his soul; its folds, now falling dark, Now almost bright; but dark or not so dark, Like cloud upon a mount, 'twas always there -- A shadow; and his face was always sad. His eyes were changeful; for the gloom of gray Within them met and blended with the blue, And when they gazed they seemed almost to dream They looked beyond you into far-away, And often drooped; his face was always sad. His eyes were deep; I often saw them dim, As if the edges of a cloud of tears Had gathered there, and only left a mist That made them moist and kept them ever moist. He never wept; his face was always sad. I mean, not many saw him ever weep, And yet he seemed as one who often wept, Or always, tears that were too proud to flow In outer streams, but shrunk within and froze -- Froze down into himself; his face was sad. And yet sometimes he smiled -- a sudden smile, As if some far-gone joy came back again, Surprised his heart, and flashed across his face A moment like a light through rifts in clouds, Which falls upon an unforgotten grave; He rarely laughed; his face was ever sad. And when he spoke his words were sad as wails, And strange as stories of an unknown land, And full of meanings as the sea of moans. At times he was so still that silence seemed To sentinel his lips; and not a word Would leave his heart; his face was strangely sad. But then at times his speech flowed like a stream -- A deep and dreamy stream through lonely dells Of lofty mountain-thoughts, and o'er its waves Hung mysteries of gloom; and in its flow It rippled on lone shores fair-fringed with flowers, And deepened as it flowed; his face was sad. He had his moods of silence and of speech. I asked him once the reason, and he said: "When I speak much, my words are only words, When I speak least, my words are more than words, When I speak not, I then reveal myself!" It was his way of saying things -- he spoke In quaintest riddles; and his face was sad.