[68]
May you die worthy patriots, dear to God and famous to all the ages.
Our battlefields are around us; the graves of our dead comrades remind us of the sacrifices Virginians made for their convictions. The evening song of our declining years may find passionate longing in the plaintive strain of our Southern bard:
Yes, give me the land where the ruins are spread,
And the living tread light on the hearts of the dead;
Yes, give me the land that is blest by the dust
And bright with the deeds of the down-trodden just;
Yes, give me the land where the battle's red blast
Has flashed to the future the fame of the past;
Yes, give me the land that hath legends and lays
That tell of the memory of long vanished days;
Yes, give me the land that has story and song
Enshrine the strife of the right with the wrong;
Yes, give me a land with a grave in each spot
And names in those graves that shall ne'er be forgot;
Yes, give me the land of the wreck and the tomb,
There is grandeur in graves; there is glory in gloom;
For out of the gloom future brightness is born
As after the night comes the sunshine of morn,
And the graves of the dead with the grass overgrown
May yet form the footstool of Liberty's throne,
And each single wreck in the warpath of might
Shall yet be a rock in the Temple of Right.
