Jefferson Davis: 1808-1889 <br /> <br />No more the white refulgent streets. <br />Never the dry hollows of the mind <br />Shall he in fine courtesy walk <br />Again, for death is not unkind. <br /> <br />A civil war cast on his fame, <br />The four years' odium of strife <br />Unbodies his dust; love cannot warm <br />His tall corpuscles to this life. <br /> <br />What did we gain? What did we lose? <br />Be still; grief for the pious dead <br />Suspires from bosoms of kind souls <br />Lavender-wise, propped up in bed. <br /> <br />Our loss put six feet under ground <br />Is measured by the magnolia's root; <br />Our gain's the intellectual sound <br />Of death's feet round a weedy tomb. <br /> <br />In the back chambers of the State <br />(Just preterition for his crimes) <br />We curse him to our busy sky <br />Who's busy in a hell a hundred times <br /> <br />A day, though profitless his task, <br />Heedless what Belial may say- <br />He who wore out the perfect mask <br />Orestes fled in night and day.<br /><br />Allen Tate<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/elegy-37/
