Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/312

 312 Southern Historical Society Papers.

trial, adapts them to every changed condition and anchors them upon their honor as a rock ; something that makes the men knightly in their deference for women, and makes the gentle woman strong when trouble comes; I know not what it is, but it is the same thing that made them true to the Confederacy while it existed and makes them true to the Union now.

There is nothing disloyal in it, for it is the very essence of patrio- tism ; there is nothing non-progressive or impractical in it, for here it must be the handmaid of all true progress and improvement; there is no weakness in it, for in it lie our chief strength and power. Call it what you will, it is real, it is Southern and it is worth preserving. It possessed those in whose honor this multitude has gathered here in the shadow of our State Capitol, where thirty years ago the people in convention ordained that Mississippi thenceforth should be "a free sovereign and independent State," and sustained them in the struggle to which that convention committed and devoted them with their consent.

May this monument by its mute appeal, more eloquent than speech and more inspiring than the harp of song, stimulate the living to emulate the virtues of the dead, and keep alive in us the sentiments and qualities which make our martyrs' lives sublime and make their memories our inheritance and an inspiration for all who come after

them.

The following beautiful original poem was then recited by Mrs.

Luther Manship :

SENTINEL SONG.

When falls the soldier brave

Dead, at the feet of wrong. The poet sings and guards his grave

With sentinels of song.

Gray ballads, mark ye well,

Thrice holy is your trust; Go, halt by the field where warriors fell,

Rest arms, and guard their dust.

Go, wearing the gray of grief,

Go, watch o'er the dead in gray ; Go, guard the private and guard the chief,

And sentinel their clay.

And the song in stately rhyme,

And with softly sounding tread Go forth to watch for a time, a time,

Where sleep the deathless dead.