Our ballads, born of tears,
Will track you on your way,
And win the hearts of the future years
For the men who wore the gray.
And so -- say what you will --
In the heart of God's own laws
I have a faith, and my heart believes still
In the triumph of our cause.
Such hope may all be vain,
And futile be such trust;
But the weary eyes that weep the slain,
And watch above such dust,
They cannot help but lift
Their visions to the skies;
They watch the clouds, but wait the rift
Through which their hope shall rise.
The victor wields the sword:
Its blade may broken be
By a thought that sleeps in a deathless word,
To wake in the years to be.
We wait a grand-voiced bard,
Who, when he sings, will send
Immortal songs' "Imperial Guard"
The Lost Cause to defend.
He has not come; he will.
But when he chants, his song
Will stir the world to its depths and thrill
The earth with its tale of wrong.
The fallen cause still waits --
Its bard has not come yet.
His sun through one of to-morrow's gates
Shall shine, but never set.
But when he comes he'll sweep
A harp with tears all stringed,
And the very notes he strikes will weep
As they come from his hand woe-winged.
Ah! grand shall be his strain,
And his songs shall fill all climes,
And the rebels shall rise and march again
Down the lines of his glorious rhymes.
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