  LINES SUGGESTED BY OBSERVING GEN. PETTIGREW’S NAME OMITTED IN MRS. DOWNING’S “MEMORIAL FLOWERS” AND IN THE “SOUTHERN BOUQUET” When poets cull memorial flowers, With which our martyrs’ graves to strew, They choose no one in Nature’s bowers For Pettigrew. Yet there is one, and only one, Which truly represents his name; A flower that revels in the sun, And drinks his flame. A flower that opens when, all red, The sun hath kissed the eastern skies; And proudly dies. Thus when the sun of victory sheared Its gory way o’er clouds of war, This flower’s tow’ring crest appeared A beacon star. And in its gorgeous, glorious rays, This flower basked, and only bowed When coming conquest’s bloody haze That sun did shroud. Crushed flower, with thy broken stem, I’ll keep thee near to typify The fallen form; the hero’s fame Can never die. June 19th, 1867. |
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