Elegy for the Native Guards

This elegy consists of four rhymed stanzas of six lines each. A six-line stanza is generally called a sexain. Before the first sexain, Trethewey includes an epigraph, or quotation, from Allen Tate’s “Ode to the Confederate Dead.” This indicates that “Elegy for the Native Guards” is written in response to Tate’s poem.

The first sexain establishes a sense of place. Trethewey uses the plural first-person (“we”) throughout the poem, beginning with the opening word. They are a group touring Ship Island. Their tour begins with a boat ride from Gulfport: Listing specific locations in Mississippi gives the reader a sense of place. The presence of sea birds, specifically “gulls” (Line 1), also develops the setting of the poem. The gulls are described in celebratory terms such as “streamers, noisy fanfare,” (Line 2). This description evokes parades, military reenactments, and fairs, establishing the theme of how history is remembered.

Halfway through the first sexain, the focus shifts to the fort on Ship Island. It has become part of the earth, with a grass roof, and is a “lee” (Line 4), or a shelter from the wind. “Lee” also evokes Robert E. Lee, Confederate general, and implies the presence of the vanished Confederacy in this abandoned fort. However, the lee is not effective at sheltering the monument, which is “weathered” (Line 6). The idea of the fort being open to the elements is introduced in this first stanza.

The second stanza describes the ranger’s tour. The group is “hurried” (Line 7) to get to the beach, but listens to the ranger. His discussion of how a hurricane led to graves of soldiers being transported into the waters of the Gulf develops the theme of loss. The power of nature, which is later connected to the Christian God, is described in terms of splitting the island “in half” (Line 10). Another specific detail, like the names of the locations in the first stanza, is the name of the hurricane: Camille (1969). This develops the sense of place and time.

At the end of the second stanza, the ranger continues the tour. He shows the group the “casements” (Line 11), which are rooms that hold cannons, as well as the cannons themselves. The tour concludes through the gift shop, where the “souvenirs” (Line 12) do not fully or accurately represent the history of the Civil War soldiers. The objects for sale are part of the theme of how history is remembered and commodified.

In the third sexain, Trethewey focuses on a plaque memorializing only some Civil War soldiers. The plaque was installed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and includes names of Confederate soldiers. This connects with the epigraph from the poem “Ode to the Confederate Dead,” as both Tate and the “Daughters” (Line 13) celebrate these soldiers. Tate wrote his poem over 70 years after the Civil War ended, and the plaque was even more recently placed. The United Daughters of the Confederacy are an organization who erected monuments and plaques to Confederate figures in two waves: one in the 1920s and another in the 1960s. These monuments and memorials are generally considered to be affirmations of white dominance in areas of increasing diversity.

In contrast, the “names” (Line 16) of Black Union soldiers are lost, which develops the theme of loss. While many graves were lost in the hurricane, the names of Black soldiers are lost because of racism. Names represent reputation, or what lives on after the body dies. Trethewey concludes the third stanza by asking where the Black soldiers’ legacies are commemorated—where is their plaque? Continuing the motif of specificity, she includes the specifics of their service: “2nd Regiment [...] black phalanx” (Line 17), unlike any monument the “we” of the poem encounter on the island.

The fourth and final stanza develops the imagery of what is lost and what remains. The resting place of the graves displaced by the storm is described using water imagery. For instance, rather than worms eating the dead, as is common in Western literature about graves, “fish” (Line 20) swim through the bones of the soldiers. The first-person plural speaker of the poem can only listen to the waters of the Gulf to hear the names excluded from historical markers. This examination of displaced graves further develops the theme of loss and memory.

In contrast, the fort remains after the graves have been washed away. However, the fort is “unfinished” (23), leaving parts of it vulnerable to weather. The description of the fort as subject to changing atmospheric conditions echoes the “weathered” (Line 6) description of the monument in the first stanza. The poem ends with a comparison between being exposed to the elements and being exposed before the eye of God. God is able to see what the “we” of the poem cannot, and has a power comparable to a hurricane.