And shall not evening call another star Out of the infinite regions of the night, To mark this day in heaven? At last we are A nation among nations; and the world Shall soon behold in many a distant port Another flag unfurled! —Henry Timrod ALEXANDER KIRKPATRICK SAT on a hard-backed chair in the prisoners’ parlor of the keeper’s house. As instructed, he sat still. The prison’s rule of silence so hated by other prisoners was a positive pleasure to Alexander, and though he’d been waiting in this cold room for more than two hours, he was not distressed. In Alexander’s daydream he swam with mermaids in the sunny green sea. On shore, his friends the poets Catullus and Lucretius were preparing a feast, but the water was so warm, the shimmer of the mermaids so uncannily beautiful . . . Mr. Tyree entered the parlor like the breath of the storm, and when he hung his oilskin on its hook, a puddle formed beneath. His trouser cuffs were dark with moisture and his felt hat was shapeless as a feed sack.
