| Old men, whose grandfathers lost an arm or leg or half their wits At Chickamauga or Shiloh, still pen tirades to Southern editors Denouncing "the tyrant Abe Lincoln" and the awful perfidy Of "the war of Northern aggression." |
| The dapper warrior astride Traveller, hewn in rock or stone Or marble or even wood, graces the courthouse square Of many a town south of Mason-Dixon In one-quarter of the nation. |
| The dark knight, suave and silver-tongued, at risk in Birmingham And Montgomery and Atlanta and even Chicago, Meets his Armageddon on a balcony in Memphis, Becoming his people's greatest oblation. |
| In the dead of mild Southern winters, two men, born 120 years And scarce a week apart, are lauded and revered and vows Are made never to forget the cause behind the loss-- Though not both, perhaps, within the same occasion. |