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The peace that puts to rest the heart of man,
The peace of land and people blessed by God.
Southward, between the arches of the trees,
The gleam of the Potomac answers back,
As it lies lingering at the bathing feet
Of the Virginia hills, whose tops are crowned
With verdure and with rich dark cooling woods.
Across from shore to shore the long bridge runs
And with its slender stretch yet firmly links
Forever to each other North and South.
What memories throng it now, dense as the hosts
That made it echo once the tread of war!
Lo, there the field where freedom's mighty heart
Throbbed in the breasts of chivalry and youth,
And sped to battle which it bled to win

For those it fought for and for those it fought.
There lie the ashes of the patriot dead
Who people now the spaces of the sky
And thence look down upon a land redeemed,
On shackled bondmen disenthralled and free,
A broken union whole-united states,
Aye, and united hearts, one people all.

TWO GREAT COMMANDERS

WILLIAM P. TRENT

WILLIAM P. TRENT was born in Virginia in 1862. He is professor of English literature in Columbia University.

NOTE. The siege of Petersburg, at the close of the Civil War, lasted from June, 1864, to the end of March, 1865. In February, 1865, General 5 Robert E. Lee was made commander-in-chief of the Confederate forces; "a position," says his biographer, "which should have been his long before. That he would have filled it admirably is clear from the suggestions as to operations far afield that he had been continually making in his letters, and posterity would have had the satisfaction of knowing that 10 the right man was in the right place."

amid those

Was not the right man in his place wintry, shelterless trenches around Petersburg-as commander of those ragged, frozen, starved, but unconquered troops who held their thirty-five or forty miles of defenses 15 with a thousand men to the mile? What other American save Washington would have been the right man there? And how can any man or woman who loves courage and genius, and unselfishness and gentleness and implicit trust in God, not love Lee, whatever may be thought of the 20 losing cause he served? Who among us does not envy the opportunity of that Richmond lady, who made him drink the last cup of tea she had, and complacently sipped the muddy water of James River that he might not detect her sacrifice and refuse to accept her homage?

But we must hasten to the closing scene of the great drama. The meeting with Grant took place a little before · noon on the morning of April 9, at a private residence in the village of Appomattox Courthouse. Nothing could have exceeded Grant's courtesy. Indeed, he rose to the 5 full stature of a hero; and the scene of the greatest surrender in American history ought to be remembered with pride by every citizen of our now united country, for it illustrates, as perhaps no similar event has ever done, the essential nobility of human nature.

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The rest is soon told. Grant generously allowed the Confederate privates to keep their horses for their spring plowing; and Lee rode away to be surrounded by his ragged veterans, who still refused to believe he would surrender, and who sobbed in anguish when he told them 15 that the struggle was over. The tears stood in his eyes; and they stand in the eyes of those who love him, as to-day they read over or recall the pathetic scene.

On the following day he issued to the survivors of the Army of Northern Virginia as dignified an address 20 as any commander, victorious or defeated, has ever written. After receiving visits from old friends like General Meade, - pathetic visits, which yet show how much human nature, with its godlike capacities, ought to be above the brutal necessity of settling disputes by war, 25 - he mounted his horse Traveler, and rode slowly toward Richmond.

Halting at the house of his brother Charles, in Powhatan County, he insisted, in spite of the rain, on spending a last night in his old tent. What poet will tell us of his thoughts? Arrived in Richmond, he was greeted 5 with wild enthusiasm, in which Northern troops who had fought against him joined heartily. Finally he escaped from demonstrations trying to him but inspiring to every lover of his kind, by entering the modest house where his family was waiting to receive him. He had left that 10 family four years before, the hope of his native state. He returned to it the chosen hero of the Southern people. He will remain the hero of that people and of thousands of men and women throughout the world who love virtue and valor in supreme combination. There is, seemingly, 15 no character in all history that combines power and virtue

and charm as he does. He is with the great captains, the supreme leaders of all time. He is with the good, pure men and chivalrous gentlemen of all time, the knights sans peur et sans reproche"; nor will the poet ever cease 20 to affirm that on the field of Appomattox the mighty battle-ax struck down the keen Damascus blade.

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Abridged.

Petersburg: a city in Virginia, about twenty miles south of Richmond. "sans peur et sans reproche" (san per à san re-prosh'): see note in Book Seven, page 209.

I STOOD TIPTOE UPON A LITTLE HILL

JOHN KEATS

John Keats (1795-1821) was one of the great English poets. He had a wonderful imagination and a quick perception of the beautiful. His verse is full of melody.

I stood tiptoe upon a little hill,

The air was cooling, and so very still

That the sweet buds which with a modest pride
Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside,

Their scantly leaved and finely tapering stems,
Had not yet lost those starry diadems

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Caught from the early sobbing of the morn.

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The clouds were pure and white as flocks new shorn,
And fresh from the clear brook; sweetly they slept
On the blue fields of heaven, and then there crept

A little noiseless noise among the leaves,
Born of the very sigh that silence heaves :
For not the faintest motion could be seen
Of all the shades that slanted o'er the green.
There was wide wand'ring for the greediest eye
To peer about upon variety;

Far round the horizon's crystal air to skim,

And trace the dwindled edgings of its brim;
To picture out the quaint and curious bending
Of a fresh woodland alley, never-ending;

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