Fraternity-Testvériség, 1961 (39. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1961-02-01 / 2. szám

4

FRATERNITY

Lee's reply came as a sharp blow and a dark threat. Lincoln then made George B. McClellan Chief Commander of the Northern Army. McClellan was replaced in 1864 by General Ulysses S. Grant.

And when Lee, in full dress Confederate uniform, with sash sword, surrendered to Grant, who wore a muddy private's uniform with a general's gold stars, at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, it was more than loser facing victor. For Lee and Grant had been comrades-in-arms in the Union Army, years earlier, before the Mason-Dixon Line divided loyalties.

STRANGERS WHO MADE OVR COUNTRY

In 1934 Stephen Vincent Benet began what was intended as a long narrative poem about the western migration of peoples, particularly the pioneers who came to America and pushed across the continent. By the time he died in 1943 he had finished only the first of the four or five projected volumes. It is from this book, THE WESTERN STAR, published posthumously, that we quote the following excerpt from one of the final passages.

End the song, end the song,

For now the flood goes west, the rushing tide,

The rushing flood of men,

Hundred on hundred, crowding the narrow ships. Massachusetts begins, and Providence Plantations,

Connecticut begins, Virginia spreads out.

There are Swedes by the Delaware, Scotchmen after Dunbar, They whip the first Quaker bloodily through the street. Exile, rebel, men against fortune, all

Who are driven forth, who seek new life and new hope As the wheel of England turns, they are coming now To the exile’s country, the land beyond the star.

(Remember that till you die. Remember that.

Remember the name of the outcast and the stranger.

Remember that when you say

“I will have none of this exile and this stranger

For his face is not like my face and his speech is strange.”

Yon have denied, America with that word

Though your fathers were the first to settle the land.)

STEPHEN VINCENT BENET