Shortly after Bob Dylan’s Modern Times was released last year, some phrases and echoes from the poetry of Henry Timrod (1828 - 1867) were found in the lyrics by Dylan fan and disc jockey Scott Warmuth (previous post here).

Around here, that’s all the excuse needed to go to Timrod for some lines on this Memorial Day.

Ode Sung on the Occasion of Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead,
at Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S.C., 1867

I

Sleep sweetly in your humble graves,
Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause;
Though yet no marble column craves
The pilgrim here to pause.

II

In seeds of laurel in the earth
The blossom of your fame is blown,
And somewhere, waiting for its birth,
The shaft is in the stone!

III

Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years
Which keep in trust your storied tombs,
Behold! your sisters bring their tears,
And these memorial blooms.

IV

Small tributes! but your shades will smile
More proudly on these wreaths to-day,
Than when some cannon-moulded pile
Shall overlook this bay.

V

Stoop, angels, hither from the skies!
There is no holier spot of ground
Than where defeated valor lies,
By mourning beauty crowned!

…

In his memoir, “Chronicles,” Dylan remembers reading microfilmed newspapers from the Civil War era in the New York Public Library, and notes the deep effect that studying this time had on him.

Back there, America was put on the cross, died and was resurrected. There was nothing synthetic about it. The godawful truth of that would be the all-encompassing template behind everything I would write.

That’s what you’d call a big statement. Yet, the only song of Dylan’s where it is clear that he is writing directly about the U.S. Civil War is ‘Cross The Green Mountain. It is a song I personally find to be deeply affecting no matter how many times I hear it. It was released in 2003 as part of the soundtrack to the Civil War epic "Gods and Generals." From the makers of the more widely acclaimed film “Gettysburg,” “Gods and Generals” focuses on the story of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson. He died after being hit by friendly fire during the battle of Chancellorsville. Dylan’s song features an echo of this event in one of its verses:

Close the eyes of our captain, peace may he know
His long night is done, the great leader is laid low
He was ready to fall, he was quick to defend
Killed outright he was, by his own men

And there is another echo I just discovered for myself — I don’t know if it’s been noted before elsewhere or not. There is a poem called Stonewall Jackson’s Way, written by John Williamson Palmer in 1862. A few of the lines go:

We see him now–the old slouched hat
Cocked o’er his eye askew–
The shrewd, dry smile–the speech so pat–
So calm, so blunt, so true.

The last couplet of Dylan’s song goes:

They were calm, they were blunt, we knew ‘em all too well
We loved each other more than we ever dared to tell

The song also incorporates a more obvious reference to a Walt Whitman poem, The Soldier’s Letter, where a soldier’s mother receives a letter telling her that her son has been wounded but “will soon be better,” when in reality at that juncture her son has already died.

A rather remarkable video was made for ‘Cross The Green Mountain, mixing footage from the film with new scenes featuring Dylan (and members of his band) in full Civil War era costume, attending to the body of a fallen soldier. It was directed by Tom Krueger. The video utilizes only an abridged version of the eight-minute-plus song, unfortunately; about one third of it. Here it is, nonetheless, via YouTube:

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