Duval Porter - Robert Edward Lee

Tho' Homor sings of Grecian Isles
In strains that every heart beguiles,
How warriors fought and heroes fell
For Helen, false and fickle belle;
Tho' France with martial joy may own
The greatest warrior world has known,
Let Albion proud as is her due,
Boast of decisive Waterloo -
And yet Virginia rightly claims
The greatest galaxy of names
In modern times, if not in all,
Names which for adoration call.
First, Henry, whose impassion'd zeal
And eloquence made others feel
The force of his resistless plea
For either death or liberty;
Then Washington, where can you trace
In annals of the human race
In any clime, a greater claim
To immortality and fame?

And still to-day Virginia gives
A name that now and ever lives;
As softening centuries come and go,
This name, will ever greater grow,
This name as moveless as the base
Of yonder mountain from its place.
The North, the South, the East, the West,
Alike will honor Lee, the best,
The highest, noblest type of man,
Yet genuine American.

In war a sword without a stain,
In peace so gently and humane
That hostile critics were disarm'd
And prais'd the man they would have harm'd.

Lee, an immortal, cannot die -
Fixed star in fame's eternal sky,
Where none will ever brighter be
Than name of Robert Edward Lee.

Duval Porter

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