Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ELEGY ON JEFFERSON DAVIS, by JOHN ORLEY ALLEN TATE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: No more the white refulgent streets Last Line: Orestes fled in night and day. Alternate Author Name(s): Tate, Allen Subject(s): American Civil War; Confederate States Of America; Consolation; Davis, Jefferson (1808-1889); U.s. - History; Confederacy | ||||||||
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 will 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 of 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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BONNIE BLUE FLAG by ANNIE CHAMBERS KETCHUM THE CONQUERED BANNER by ABRAM JOSEPH RYAN ODE TO THE CONFEDERATE DEAD by JOHN ORLEY ALLEN TATE AT MAGNOLIA CEMETERY by HENRY TIMROD BEAUREGARD by CATHERINE ANNE WARFIELD VIRGINIA - THE WEST by WALT WHITMAN BATTLE OF MURFREESBORO, 1862-1922 by JOHN ORLEY ALLEN TATE |
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