Walking into the shadows, walking alone
Where the sun falls through the ruined boughs of locust
Up to the president's office. . . .

Hearing the voices

Whisper, Hush, it is General Lee! And strangely
Hearing my own voice say, Good morning, boys.
(Don't get up. You are early. It is long
Before the bell. You will have long to wait
On these cold steps. . . .)

The young have time to wait

But soldiers' faces under their tossing flags
Lift no more by any road or field,
And I am spent with old wars and new sorrow.
Walking the rocky path, where steps decay
And the paint cracks and grass eats on the stone.
It is not General Lee, young men. . .
It is Robert Lee in a dark civilian suit who walks,
An outlaw fumbling for the latch, a voice
Commanding in a dream where no flag flies. 
My father's house is taken and his hearth
Left to the candle-drippings where the ashes
Whirl at a chimney-breath on the cold stone. 
I can hardly remember my father's look, I cannot
Answer his voice as he calls farewell in the misty
Mounting where riders gather at gates. 
He was old then--I was a child--his hand
Held out for mine, some daybreak snatched away, 
And he rode out, a broken man. Now let
His lone grave keep, surer than cypress roots, 
The vow I made beside him. God too late
Unseals to certain eyes the drift
Of time and the hopes of men and a sacred cause. 
The fortune of the Lees goes with the land
Whose sons will keep it still. My mother
Told me much. She sat among the candles, 
Fingering the Memoirs, now so long unread. 
And as my pen moves on across the page
Her voice comes back, a murmuring distillation
Of old Virginia times now faint and gone, 
The hurt of all that was and cannot be. 

Why did my father write? I know he saw
History clutched as a wraith out of blowing mist
Where tongues are loud, and a glut of little souls
Laps at the too much blood and the burning house. 
He would have his say, but I shall not have mine. 
What I do is only a son's devoir 
To a lost father. Let him only speak. 
The rest must pass to men who never knew
(But on a written page) the strike of armies, 
And never heard the long Confederate cry
Charge through the muzzling smoke or saw the bright
Eyes of the beardless boys go up to death. 
It is Robert Lee who writes with his father's hand--
The rest must go unsaid and the lips be locked. 

If all were told, as it cannot be told--
If all the dread opinion of the heart
Now could speak, now in the shame and torment
Lashing the bound and trampled States-- 

If a word were said, as it cannot be said--
I see clear waters run in Virginia's Valley
And in the house the weeping of young women
Rises no more. The waves of grain begin. 
The Shenandoah is golden with a new grain. 
The Blue Ridge, crowned with a haze of light, 
Thunders no more. The horse is at plough. The rifle
Returns to the chimney crotch and the hunter's hand. 
And nothing else than this? Was it for this
That on an April day we stacked our arms
Obedient to a soldier's trust? To lie
Ground by heels of little men, 

Forever maimed, defeated, lost, impugned? 
And was I then betrayed? Did I betray? 
If it were said, as it still might be said--
If it were said, and a word should run like fire, 
Like living fire into the roots of grass, 
The sunken flag would kindle on wild hills, 
The brooding hearts would waken, and the dream
Stir like a crippled phantom under the pines,
And this torn earth would quicken into shouting
Beneath the feet of the ragged bands--

The pen

Turns to the waiting page, the sword
Bows to the rust that cankers and the silence. 
Among these boys whose eyes lift up to mine
Within gray walls where droning wasps repeat
A hollow reveille, I still must face, 
Day after day, the courier with his summons
Once more to surrender, now to surrender all. 
Without arms or men I stand, but with knowledge only
I face what long I saw, before others knew, 
When Pickett's men streamed back, and I heard the tangled
Cry of the Wilderness wounded, bloody with doom. 

The mountains, once I said, in the little room
At Richmond, by the huddled fire, but still
The President shook his head. The mountains wait, 
I said, in the long beat and rattle of siege
At cratered Petersbyrg. Too late
We sought the mountains and those people came. 
And Lee is in the mountains now, beyond Appomatox, 
Listening long for voices that will never speak
Again; hearing the hoofbeats that come and go and fade
Without a stop, without a brown hand lifting
The tent-flap, or a bugle call at dawn, 
Or ever on the long white road the flag
Of Jackson's quick brigades. I am alone, 
Trapped, consenting, taken at last in mountains. 

It is not the bugle now, or the long roll beating. 
The simple stroke of a chapel bell forbids
The hurtling dream, recalls the lonely mind. 
Young men, the God of your fathers is a just
And merciful God Who in this blood once shed
On your green altars measures out all days, 
And measures out the grace
Whereby alone we live; 
And in His might He waits, 
Brooding within the certitude of time, 
To bring this lost forsaken valor
And the fierce faith undying
And the love quenchless
To flower among the hills to which we cleave, 
To fruit upon the mountains whither we flee, 
Never forsaking, never denying
His children and His children's children forever
Unto all generations of the faithful heart.

         This poem was first printed in the second issue of Confederate Veteran magazine, which appeared in February 1893. The author clearly was one of Lee's veteran soldiers, and although the verses are far from great poetry, they nevertheless express the affection and reverence in which Lee was still held by his men almost 30 years after the War's conclusion. 

He fought the fight to finish,
  And his soldier's work is done; 
Lee ever stands immortal! 
  Freedom's model of a son. 

As in the day of battle, 
  Or on his great retreat, 
The center of attraction; 
  We come, our Lee to meet. 

We've tried to mould his features, 
  To clothe him with a form; 
To hold him up for men to see
  How much he can adorn. 

He came not home triumphant, 
  But a hero he did come; 
With honor pure, unsullied, 
  And a love excelled by none. 

No pathway strewn with flowers
  Welcomed Lee back from the war, 
But an anguish for his country
  And the ruined homes he saw. 

He, who could stand undaunted
  'Midst the crash and clang of arms, 
Grew grander when, disabled, 
  Leading comrades to their farms. 

For he tread the path of duty, 
  And he won respect and fame,-- 
The proudest wreath of laurels
  That a mortal man can claim. 

'Tis not the smoke of battle, 
  The carnage, or the flame; 
But we hold our Lee close to us,-- 
  We love to call his name. 

And we tell all we know of him; 
  And the nation yet unborn
Shall learn to know and love him
  Like the fathers that have gone.

              This poem was written to celebrate the dedication of Gutzon Borglum's monumental sculpture of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson and Confederate President Jefferson Davis on Georgia's Stone Mountain May 20, 1916.

Come on, Marse Robert, throw yourself into the saddle,
For the fifes are growing fretful and the drums begin to boom:
Get a foot into the stirrup, then give your horse a chirrup
And we'll ride Stone Mountain 'til the crack of doom!

Come on, Marse Robert, your boys in gray are waiting;
We have bivouacked in this granite since the minnie struck us dumb;
But we'll rise in ancient glory to hear the splendid story
Of your valor and your greatness yet to come.

Come on, Marse Robert, the nation needs your presence.
It needs you on this mountain where all its sons may gaze.
In this time of strife and passion, lead them, in your kindly fashion,
Into peace and brotherhood, as in the olden days.

        This poem describes a famous incident that took place during the Battle of the Wilderness in which Robert E. Lee rode to the front to witness the progress of the battle and was ordered back emphatically by his men, who were concerned for their general's safety.

Dawn of a pleasant morning in May,
Broke through the Wilderness cool and gray;
While perched in the tallest tree-tops, the birds
Were carolling Mendelssohn's "Song without Words."

Far from the haunts of men remote,
The brook brawled on with a liquid note;
And Nature, all tranquil and lovely wore
The smile of the spring, as in Eden of yore.

Little by little, as daylight increased,
And deepened, the roseate flush in the East--
Little by little did morning reveal
Two long glittering lines of steel;

Where two hundred thousand bayonets gleam,
Tipped with the light of the earliest beam,
And the faces are sullen and grim to see
In the hostile armies of Grant and Lee.

All of a sudden, ere rose the sun,
Pealed on the silence the opening gun--
A little white puff of smoke there came,
And anon the valley was wreathed in flame.

Down on the left of the Rebel lines,
Where a breastwork stands in a copse of pines,
Before the Rebels their ranks can form,
The Yankees have carried the place by storm.

Stars and Stripes on the salient wave,
Where many a hero has found a grave,
And the gallant Confederates strive in vain
The ground they have drenched with their blood to regain.

Yet louder the thunder of battle roared,
Yet a dealier fire on the columns poured;
Slaughter infernal rode with Despair,
Furies twain, through the murky air.

Not far off, in the saddle there sat
A gray-bearded man in a black slouched hat;
Not much moved by the fire was he,
Calm and resolute Robert Lee.

Quick and watchful he kept his eye
On the bold Rebel brigades close by,
Reserves that were standing (and dying) at ease,
While the tempest of wrath toppled over the trees,

For still with their loud, deep, bull-dog bay,
The Yankee batteries blazed away,
And with every murderous second that sped
A dozen brave fellows, alas! fell dead.

The grand old gray-beard rode to the space
Where Death and his victims stood face to face,
And silently waved his old slouched hat--
A world of meaning there was in that!

"Follow me! Steady! We'll save the day!"
This was what he seemed to say;
And to the light of his glorious eye
The bold brigades thus made reply:

"We'll go forward, but you must go back"--
And they moved not an inch in the perilous track:
"Go to the rear, and we'll send them to hell!"
And the sound of the battle was lost in their yell.

Turning his bridle, Robert Lee
Rode to the rear. Like waves of the sea,
Bursting their dikes in their overflow,
Madly his veterans dashed on the foe.

And backward in terror that foe was driven,
Their banners rent and their columns riven,
Wherever the tide of battle rolled
Over the Wilderness, wood and wold.

Sunset out of a crimson sky
Streamed o'er a field of ruddier dye,
And the brook ran on with a purple stain,
From the blood of ten thousand foemen slain.

Seasons have passed since that day and year--
Again o'er its pebbles the brook runs clear,
And the field in a richer green is drest
Where the dead of a terrible conflict rest.

Hushed is the roll of the Rebel drum,
The sabres are sheathed, and the cannon are dumb;
And Fate, with his pitiless band, has furled
The flag that once challenged the gaze of the world;

But the fame of the Wilderness fight abides;
And down into history grandly rides,
Calm and unmoved as in battle he sat,
The gray-bearded man in the black slouched hat.

A gallant foeman in the fight,
  A brother when the fight was o'er,
The hand that led the host with might
  The blessed torch of learning bore.

No shriek of shells nor roll of drums,
  No challenge fierce, resounding far,
When reconciling Wisdom comes
  To heal the cruel wounds of war.

Thought may the minds of men divide,
  Love makes the heart of nations one,
And so, the soldier grave beside,
  We honor thee, Virginia's son.

Forth from its scabbard, pure and bright,
  Flashed the sword of Lee!
Far in the front of the deadly fight,
High o'er the brave in the cause of Right
Its stainless sheen, like a beacon light,
  Led us to Victory!

Out of its scabbard, where, full long,
  It slumbered peacefully,
Roused from its rest by the battle's song,
Shielding the feeble, smiting the strong,
Guarding the right, avenging the wrong,
  Gleamed the sword of Lee!

Forth from its scabbard, high in the air
  Beneath Virginia's sky--
And they who saw it gleaming there,
And knew who bore it, knelt to swear
That where that sword led they would dare
  To follow--and to die!

Out of its scabbard! Never hand
  Waved sword from stain as free,
Nor purer sword led braver band,
Nor braver bled for a brighter land,
Nor brighter land had a cause so grand,
  Nor cause a chief like Lee!

Forth from its scabbard! How we prayed
  That sword might victor be;
And when our triumph was delayed,
And many a heart grew sore afraid,
We still hoped on while gleamed the blade
  Of noble Robert Lee!

Forth from its scabbard all in vain
  Bright flashed the sword of Lee;
'Tis shrouded now in its sheath again,
It sleeps the sleep of our noble slain,
Defeated, yet without stain,
  Proudly and peacefully!

The man was loved, the man was idolized,
The man had every just and noble gift.
He took great burdens and he bore them well,
Believed in God but did not preach too much,
Believed and followed duty first and last
With marvellous consistency and force,
Was a great victor, in defeat as great,
No more, no less, always himself in both,
Could make men die for him but saved his men
Whenever he could save them was most kind
But was not disobeyed was a good father,
A loving husband, a considerate friend.