Shelby County TN Archives News.....THE DEAD CONFEDERACY January 21, 1872 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/tn/tnfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Bill Boggess william-boggess@webtv.net April 16, 2006, 7:15 am DAILY ARKANSAS GAZETTE January 21, 1872 (First copied from abandoned ) newspaper copy courtesy, Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Little Rock Published in DAILY ARKANSAS GAZETTE Sunday, January 21, 1872, Front Page, column1.      THE   DEAD   CONFEDERACY by; Fanny Green BORLAND (1848AR-1879TN) (aka Violet Lea) Pale, stark, and cold she lies in utter silence, No more to rise up from that deathly swoon To weeping States that whisper in great anguish,               "Dead, dead so soon." AH! mourn for her with tender love and pity, Ye men that strove to lengthen out her years, A little child, grown old and gray with sorrow,               Demands your tears. A little child with blood upon her ringlets, A faded banner wapping her tired arms, Bruised feet that falter in the sweet revealing             Of freedom's children. Hushed into mute and reverent emotion, The people pass beneath he heavy skies, Knowing not to day, nor yet upon the morrow,               Will she arise. Arise to spread her banner in rejoicing, To beckon honor from the wanting years. Who hints of faults, with every stain upon her             Washed out tars. The faulty idol of a faulty people, Who loved her better that her faults were theirs, Who see her deaf, blind, dead to all perfection             The future hears. As dead as those who sought to be her armour, Who held their hearts as shields twixt her and death And died to cherish into fuller being             The infant breath. Strong hearts that in the rush and roar of battle Poured out their noble blood like holy wine, Wasting its wealth and richness on a broken             And blasted shrine. A blasted shrine, yet even in its blighting Crowned with the homage of a million hearts, Whose burning tears poured out the last libation             That love imparts. A faded hope, yet fairer in its fading Than victory's temples reared above the dead, And sweeter ---- blasted, faded, broken ---- than rich incense             For conquests shed. Pale, pale she lies; the autumn cometh gently And clasps its crimson fingers round her feet, And throws a golden spell upon the forest,             As is most meet. It is most meet that one who died in childhood, Who smiled upon us from the purple west, Should take, amid the crimson and the golden,               Her final rest. She lieth cold; the sprite of the winter Hushes the careless river at her side. 'Tis well, we think, that thus should sleep in silence             A people's pride. She lieth still; we dare not sing her requiem. The western star has faded out of sight, Like her who was the idol of our worship,             Leaving us night.              -------<>------- Additional Comments: The above written under pen name 'Violet Lea' at Princeton, Arkansas in 1865 by youthful Fanny Green Borland, just turned 17. It was printed in "London's Cosmopolitan", Thursday, 21 Dec 1871, and on Front Page, Sunday, 21 January 1872, of Little Rock's, Daily Arkansas Gazette, with article! The "Cosmopolitan", in part printed;             "It is with a feeling of pride and sadness that we present this poem to the British public,...", --- and,             "We are glad to take this young author by the hand and welcome her among the ranks of the poets." The Daily Arkansas Gazette printed the poem in column 1, Front Page, Sunday 21 January 1872, with lengthily article page 2, column 1, in part saying:                "No higher compliment could be paid to the young authoress, and we have no doubt the many friends of her honored father, who once represented the state in the highest legislative tribunal in the nation, will read with pleasure and delight the high encomium paid her."                 "Her first attempt at poetry, when she was but twelve years of age (1860), was published in the GAZETTE. Even at that early age her fugitive pieces were widely copied and favorably commented on by the press." The Gazette, had on 22 November 1862, printed her, "The Past and Future", with lead-in comment;               "Within the last four weeks, while a little girl, just fourteen years old, sat by the sick bed of her Father [Solon BORLAND], as he slept, a few evenings after the death of her Mother [23 October 1862, and brother George Godwin BORLAND, 24 June 1862, Clarksville, Texas], she composed the following lines. At the suggestion of those who think favorably, alike, of the filial piety, and poetical talent, they exhibit, they are published for the perusal of a circle of sympathising friends."    To better understand this young, charming, talented teenager, one of the belles-of-the-ball following the war, one needs only to read the 1983 published, 1863-1865 diary of artist/writer/school teacher Virginia Davis Gray (1834ME-1886AR), annoted and published in Spring and Summer issues of Arkansas Historical Quarterly by Professor Carl H. Moneyhon, University of Arkansas, Little Rock.    Fanny died a short but violent death during the morning of 23 August 1879, as did her husband and her sister's husband with some 5,000 others in 1878, during the yellow fever epidemic of Memphis, Tennessee. We have located six of her poems; The Dead Confederacy, At My Father's Feet, David O Dodd, Judge Not By The Outward Look, To My Son's Scrape-Book, and one in upbublished diary of Mrs Gray about her son Carl. --- Missing and known are: The Past and Future, The Baby of Lillie, Dilsey at the North, Born Dead, and 1878 tribute to Colonel Harvey Washington Walter, who died 1878 of yellow fever. We are looking for more poems and additional information about Fanny Green (Borland) Moores (aka Violet Lea). The Dead Confederacy probably was the poem mentioned December 27, 1865 entry of Virginia Davis GRAY's 1863-1865, 1983 published diary by Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Fanny's and sister Mollie's friend, teacher and surrogate mother. Its said, the reason this poem was published in London's Cosmopolitan, 21 December 1871, with glowing words of praise for Fanny, was that Father Abram P Ryan distributed her work in England. Fanny was daughter of Mary Isabel Melbourne and U S Senator Solon Borland, M D, --- named in honor of his aunt who raised him and her half-brother during their early years at Suffolk, VA, born in Little Rock, September 1848 upon Major Borland's return from fighting, being captured, escaping and helping in the capture of Mexico City, of the Mexican-American War, --- after appointed and elected to the United States Senate where he served until President Polk appointed him "Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary" to Central America March 1853, turning down Governorship of New Mexico territory.    MOORES (Borland), Fanny Green Biography: Marriage: Obituary:    GRAY-Beattie (Borland), Mollie Biography: Obituary: File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/tn/shelby/newspapers/thedeadc2nw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/tnfiles/ File size: 8.0 Kb