Author Information
At A Nearly Forgotten Graveyard
The common in this country are uncouth
as they were, I am in certain, in your day.
I am maligned a murderer, but truth,
I trust, will out and have its final way,
and name me as a hero, not a churl.
A monument, and not a private booth,
will be mine, not like this hole of yours, here,
where once had been the primitive frontier;
and this, a long forgotten cemetary.
You were a pretty, humble, modest girl
of no achievement; I, extraordinary
in History, will be a long praised man,
and great revisions will set me apart.
Your early death shattered his youthful heart;
and I, with somewhat more finesse, his head.
Then Lawyer Herndon brought to currency
the tale of love and starcrossed tragedy
(so quaint it was, I laughed hysterically):
a western "Romeo And Juliet,"
by love united and by fate beset
(postponed engagement and your short lifespan).
I am alive, and both of you are dead.
I shot him forth to you: have you received
him?---in that Heaven I have not believed
in since some years before I took the stage
to vindicate the South and vent my rage.
And for that, I will have celebrity
such as you never had, nor can it be
for you, forgotten in this graveyard, Ann.
