Classic Poem

At length he stood, the privileged of Truth
By God's grace, as the wild winds of defeat
Blew the wild clouds from off the mountain tops.
He turned and faced the pageant luminous,
Feeling the potence of a Holy Breath,
Hearing the rhythms of a high persuasion.

Trembling before his strange theophany
He saw himself through Heaven's o'erpowering,
The chosen vessel of a great renascence.
'Twas spirit answered spirit as God's heights
Called to man's depths. A new light flaming leaped
Into his eyes. The battle-flush of yore
Rose to his brow. His hand passed to his side
As if to draw again his sheathed sword.
He heard the Nation's future summoning,
Union and Liberty in high commands.
He heard the spirit of the martyred Chief
Above discordant tongues of time and change.
He felt the fringe of his redemption robe,
And power emergent from his healing purpose.
What Lincoln would have featured for his people —
Lee's suffering people, Lincoln's weary children —
He must attempt with similar fatherliness;
He must become a savior to the South.

'Twas revelation and transfiguration,
The Open Heavens and the White Battalions,
The Stars of Morning and the Golden Trumpets,
A Power descending and a Covenant Glory,
While Dream and Duty linked their shining wings.

Now should his Standard be the Stars and Stripes;
Now should his Capital be Washington;
Now should his Country be the United States,
And he no longer a Virginian
But an American. — The Day had dawned.