Elegy

Jefferson Davis: 1808-1889 No more the white refulgent streets. Never the dry hollows of the mind Shall he in fine courtesy walk Again, for death is not unkind. A civil war cast on his fame, The four years' odium of strife Unbodies his dust; love cannot warm His tall corpuscles to this life. What did we gain? What did we lose? Be still; grief for the pious dead Suspires from bosoms of kind souls Lavender-wise, propped up in bed. Our loss put six feet under ground Is measured by the magnolia's root; Our gain's the intellectual sound Of death's feet round a weedy tomb. In the back chambers of the State (Just preterition for his crimes) We curse him to our busy sky Who's busy in a hell a hundred times A day, though profitless his task, Heedless what Belial may say- He who wore out the perfect mask Orestes fled in night and day.