So the deck is cleared and the host goes back to its ships. The bells in the Richmond churches, clanging for Sunday, Clang as if silver were mixed in their sweet bell-metal, The dark cloud lifts, the girls wear flowers again. Virginia June, Crushed under cannon, under the cannon ruts, The trampled grass lifts up its little green guidons, The honeysuckle and the eglantine Blow on their tiny trumpets, Blow out “Dixie,” Blow out “Lorena,” blow the “Bonnie Blue Flag” —There are many dead, there are many too many dead, The hospitals are crowded with broken dolls⁠— But cotton has won again, cotton is haughty, Cotton is mounting again to a sleepy throne, Wheat and iron recoil from the fields of cotton, The sweet grass grows over them, the cotton blows over them, One more battle and free, free, free forever. Cotton moves North in a wave, in a white-crested Wave of puff-blossoms⁠—in a long grey coil