"Sic Jurat."
Reading edition
By Frank Ticknor, M.D., of Georgia.
The knightliest of the knightly race Who, since the clays of old, Have kept the lamp of chivalry Alight in hearts of gold; The kindliest of the kindly band Who rarely hated ease, Yet rode with Smith around the land, And Raleigh o'er the seas;
Who climbed the blue Virginia hills, Amid embattled foes, And planted there, in valleys fair, The lily and the rose; Whose fragrance lives in many lands, Whose beauty stars the earth, And lights the hearths of thousand homes With loveliness and worth,--
We feared they slept!--the sons who kept The names of noblest sires, And waked not, though the darkness crept Around their vigil fires; But still the Golden Horse-shoe Knights Their "Old Dominion" keep: The foe has found the enchanted ground, But not a knight asleep.
Torch-Hall, Georgia.