Southern Literature From 1579-1895 / A comprehensive review, with copious extracts and criticisms / for the use of schools and the general reader

JAMES BARRON HOPE.

1827=1887.

James Barron Hope was born near Norfolk, Virginia, educated at William and Mary College, and began the practice of law at Hampton. In 1857 he wrote the poem for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown, and in 1858 an Ode for the dedication of the Washington Monument at Richmond. He also wrote poems for the “Southern Literary Messenger,” as Henry Ellen. In 1861 he entered the Confederate service and fought through the war as captain. Afterwards he settled in Norfolk to the practice of his profession. His best poems are considered to be “Arms and the Man,” and “Memorial Ode,” the latter written for the laying of the corner-stone of the Lee Monument in Richmond, 1887, just before his death.

WORKS.

Leoni di Monota, [poems].
Elegiac Ode and other Poems.
Under the Empire, [novel].
Arms and the Man, and other Poems.

THE VICTORY AT YORKTOWN.

(From Arms and the Man.[32])

A Metrical Address recited on the one hundredth anniversary of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, on invitation of the United States Congress, October 19, 1881.

PROLOGUE.

Full-burnished through the long-revolving years
The ploughshare of a Century to-day
Runs peaceful furrows where a crop of Spears
Once stood in War’s array.

And we, like those who on the Trojan plain
See hoary secrets wrenched from upturned sods;—
Who, in their fancy, hear resound again
The battle-cry of Gods;—

We now,—this splendid scene before us spread
Where Freedom’s full hexameter began—
Restore our Epic, which the Nations read
As far its thunders ran.

Here visions throng on People and on Bard,
Ranks all a-glitter in battalions massed
And closed around as like a plumÈd guard,
They lead us down the Past.

I see great Shapes in vague confusion march
Like giant shadows, moving vast and slow,
Beneath some torch-lit temple’s mighty arch
Where long processions go.

I see these Shapes before me all unfold,
But ne’er can fix them on the lofty wall,
Nor tell them, save as she of Endor told
What she beheld to Saul.

WASHINGTON AND LEE.

(From Memorial Ode.)

Our history is a shining sea
Locked in by lofty land,
And its great Pillars of Hercules,
Above the shifting sand
I here behold in majesty
Uprising on each hand.

These Pillars of our history,
In fame forever young,
Are known in every latitude
And named in every tongue,
And down through all the Ages
Their story shall be sung.

The Father of his Country
Stands above that shut-in sea,
A glorious symbol to the world
Of all that’s great and free;
And to-day Virginia matches him—
And matches him with Lee.

FOOTNOTE:

[32] By permission of Mrs. Jane Barren Hope Marr.

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