in the Capitol Square, Richmond, Virginia, the 22d of February, 1858.
That same year these recited poems, together with some miscellaneous
ones were published.

Congress chose him as poet for the Yorktown Centennial, 1881, and
his "brilliant and masterly poem was a fitting companion piece to
the splendid oration delivered upon that occasion by the renowned
orator, Robert C. Winthrop."

This metrical address "Arms and the Man," with various sonnets was
published the next year. As the flower of his genius, its noble
measures only revealed their full beauty when they fell from the
lips of him who framed them, and it was under this spell that one of
those who had thronged about him that 19th of October cried out:
"Now I understand the power by which the old Greek poets swayed the
men of their generation."

Again his State called upon him to weave among her annals the
laurels of his verse at the laying of the cornerstone of the
monument erected in Richmond to Robert E. Lee. The corner-stone was
laid October, 1887, but the poet's voice had been stilled forever.
He died September the 15th, as he had often wished to die, "in
harness," and at home, and Death came swift and painless.

His poem, save for the after softening touches, had been finished
the previous day, and was recited at the appointed time and place by
Captain William Gordon McCabe.

"Memoriae Sacrum," the Lee Memorial Ode, has been pronounced by many
his masterpiece, and waked this noble echo in a brother poet's soul: