Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE PALMETTO AND THE PINE, by MANLEY H. PIKE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE PALMETTO AND THE PINE, by                
First Line: There grows a fair palmetto in the sunny southern lands
Last Line: In one grand whole, as one soil bears the palmetto and the pine!
Subject(s): North, The; Palmetto Trees; Pine Trees; Reconciliation; Southern States; Trees; South (u.s.)


THERE grows a fair palmetto in the sunny Southern lands;
Upon the stern New England hills a somber pine tree stands;
And each towers like a monument above the perished brave;
A grave 'neath the palmetto—beneath the pine a grave.

The Carolina widow comes this bright May day to spread
Magnolia and jessamine above her soldier dead.
And the Northern mother violets strews upon her son below,—
Her only son, who fell so many weary years ago.

Tears for the gallant Yankee boy—one of Grant's heroes he;
Tears for the stalwart Southern man—the man who marched with Lee.
But love, and only love, between the lonely ones who twine
Their wreaths 'neath the palmetto—their chaplets 'neath the pine.

Oh, tried tree of the Southland! from out whose trunks were wrought
The ramparts of that glorious fort where Sergeant Jasper fought;
Oh, true tree of the Northland! whose pictured form supplied
The emblem for our earliest flag, that waved where Warren died—

Still watch the dead you've watched so long, the dead who died so well;
And matrons mourn, as mourn you must, your lost dear ones who fell;
But joy and peace and hope to all, now North and South combine
In one grand whole, as one soil bears the palmetto and the pine!





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