I am sitting lone and wearyOn the hearth of my darkened room,And the low wind'smiserereMakes sadder the midnight gloom;There's a terror that's nameless nigh me--There's a phantom spell in the air,And methinks that the dead glide by me,And the breath of the grave's in my hair!
'Tis a vision of ghastly faces,All pallid, and worn with pain,Where the splendor of manhood's gracesGive place to a gory stain;In a wild and weird processionThey sweep by my startled eyes,And stern with their fate's fruition,Seem melting in blood-red skies.
Have they come from the shores supernal,Have they passed from the spirit's goal,'Neath the veil of the life eternal,To dawn on my shrinking soul?Have they turned from the choiring angels,Aghast at the woe and dearthThat war, with his dark evangels,Hath wrought in the loved of earth?
Vain dream! 'mid the far-off mountainsThey lie, where the dew-mists weep,And the murmur of mournful fountainsBreaks over their painful sleep;On the breast of the lonely meadows,Safe, safe from the despot's will,They rest in the star-lit shadows,And their brows are white and still!
Alas! for the martyred heroesCut down at their golden prime,In a strife with the brutal Neroes,Who blacken the path of Time!For them is the voice of wailing,And the sweet blush-rose departsFrom the cheeks of the maidens, palingO'er the wreck of their broken hearts!
And alas! for the vanished gloryOf a thousand household spells!And alas! for the tearful storyOf the spirit's fond farewells!By the flood, on the field, in the forest,Our bravest have yielded breath,But the shafts that have smitten sorest,Were launched by a viewless death!
Oh, Thou, that hast charms of healing,Descend on a widowed land,And bind o'er the wounds of feelingThe balms of Thy mystic hand!Till the hearts that lament and languish,Renewed by the touch divine,From the depths of a mortal anguishMay rise to the calm of Thine!
"Another star now shines on high."
Another ray of light hath fled, another Southern braveHath fallen in his country's cause and found a laurelled grave--Hath fallen, but his deathless name shall live when stars shall set,For, noble Cleburne, thou art one this world will ne'er forget.
'Tis true thy warm heart beats no more, that on thy noble headAzrael placed his icy hand, and thou art with the dead;The glancing of thine eyes are dim; no more will they be brightUntil they ope in Paradise, with clearer, heavenlier light.
No battle news disturbs thy rest upon the sun-bright shore,No clarion voice awakens thee on earth to wrestle more,No tramping steed, no wary foe bids thee awake, arise,For thou art in the angel world, beyond the starry skies.
Brave Cleburne, dream in thy low bed, with pulseless, deadened heart;Calm, calm and sweet, 0 warrior rest! thou well hast borne thy part,And now a glory wreath for thee the angels singing twine,A glory wreath, not of the earth, but made by hands divine.
A long farewell--we give thee up, with all thy bright renown;A chieftain here on earth is lost, in heaven an angel found.Above thy grave a wail is heard--a nation mourns her dead;A nobler for the South ne'er died, a braver never bled.
A last farewell--how can we speak the bitter word farewell!The anguish of our bleeding hearts vain words may never tell.Sleep on, sleep on, to God we give our chieftain in his might;And weeping, feel he lives on high, where comes no sorrow's night.
Selma Despatch, 1864.
Sons of the South, arouse to battle!Gird on your armor for the fight!The Northern Thugs with dread "War's rattle,"Pour on each vale, and glen, and height;Meet them as Ocean meets in madnessThe frail bark on the rocky shore,When crested billows foam and roar,And the wrecked crew go down in sadness.Arm! Arm! ye Southern braves!Scatter yon Vandal hordes!Despots and bandits, fitting foodFor vultures and your swords.
Shall dastard tyrants march their legionsTo crush the land of Jackson--Lee?Shall freedom fly to other regions,And sons of Yorktown bend the knee?Or shall their "footprints' base pollution"Of Southern soil, in blood be purged,And every flying slave be scourgedBack to his snows in wild confusion?Arm! Arm! &c.
Vile despots, with their minions knavish,Would drag us back to their embrace;Will freemen brook a chain so slavish?Will brave men take so low a place?O, Heaven! for words--the loathing, scorningWe feel for such a Union's bands:To paint with more than mortal hands,And sound our loudest notes of warning.Arm! Arm! &c.
What! union with a race ignoringThe charter of our nation's birth!Union with bastard slaves adoringThe fiend that chains them, to the earth!No! we reply in tones of thunder--No! our staunch hills fling back the sound--No! our hoarse cannon echo round--No! evermore remain asunder!Arm! Arm! &c.
Southern Confederacy.
"Great Pan is dead!" so cried an airy tongueTo one who, drifting down Calabria's shore,Heard the last knell, in starry midnight rung,Of the old Oracles, dumb for evermore.
A low wail ran along the shuddering deep,And as, far off, its flaming accents died,The awe-struck sailors, startled from their sleep,Gazed, called aloud: no answering voice replied;
Nor ever will--the angry Gods have fled,Closed are the temples, mute are all the shrines,The fires are quenched, Dodona's growth is dead,The Sibyl's leaves are scattered to the winds.
No mystic sentence will they bear again,Which, sagely spelled, might ward a nation's doom;But we have left us still some god-like men,And some great voices pleading from the tomb.
If we would heed them, they might save us yet,Call up some gleams of manhood in our breasts,Truth, valor, justice, teach us to forgetIn a grand cause our selfish interests.
But we have fallen on evil times indeed,When public faith is but the common shame,And private morals held an idiot's creed,And old-world honesty an empty name.
And lust, and greed, and gain are all our arts!The simple lessons which our father's taughtAre scorned and jeered at; in our sordid martsWe sell the faith for which they toiled and fought.
Each jostling each in the mad strife for gold,The weaker trampled by the unrecking throngFriends, honor, country lost, betrayed, or sold,And lying blasphemies on every tongue.
Cant for religion, sounding words for truth,Fraud leads to fortune, gelt for guilt atones,No care for hoary age or tender youth,For widows' tears or helpless orphans' groans.
The people rage, and work their own wild will,They stone the prophets, drag their highest down,And as they smite, with savage folly stillSmile at their work, those dead eyes wear no frown.
The sage of "Drainfield"[1] tills a barren soil,And reaps no harvest where he sowed the seed,He has but exile for long years of toil;Nor voice in council, though his children bleed.
And never more shall "Redcliffs"[2] oaks rejoice,Now bowed with grief above their master's bier;Faction and party stilled that mighty voice,Which yet could teach us wisdom, could we hear.
And "Woodland's"[3] harp is mute: the gray, old manBroods by his lonely hearth and weaves no song;Or, if he sing, the note is sad and wan,Like the pale face of one who's suffered long.
So all earth's teachers have been overborneBy the coarse crowd, and fainting; droop or die;They bear the cross, their bleeding brows the thorn,And ever hear the clamor--"Crucify!"
Oh, for a man with godlike heart and brain!A god in stature, with a god's great will.And fitted to the time, that not in vainBe all the blood we're spilt and yet must spill.
Oh, brothers! friends! shake off the Circean spell!Rouse to the dangers of impending fate!Grasp your keen swords, and all may yet be well--More gain, more pelf, and it will be, too late!
Charleston Mercury [1864].
[1] The country-seat of R. Barnwell Rhett.
[2] The homestead of Jas. H. Hammond.
[3] The homestead of W. Gilmore Simms (destroyed by Sherman's army.)
I am sitting alone by a fireThat glimmers on Sugar Loaf's height,But before I to rest shall retireAnd put out the fast fading light--While the lanterns of heaven are ling'ringIn silence all o'er the deep sea,And loved ones at home are yet minglingTheir voices in converse of me--While yet the lone seabird is flyingSo swiftly far o'er the rough wave,And many fond mothers are sighingFor the noble, the true, and the brave;Let me muse o'er the many departedWho slumber on mountain and vale;With the sadness which shrouds the lone-hearted,Let me tell of my comrades a tale.Far away in the green, lonely mountains,Where the eagle makes bloody his beak,In the mist, and by Gettysburg's fountains,Our fallen companions now sleep!Near Charleston, where Sumter still risesIn grandeur above the still wave,And always at evening disclosesThe fact that her inmates yet live--On islands, and fronting Savannah,Where dark oaks overshadow the ground,Round Macon and smoking Atlanta,How many dead heroes are found!And out on the dark swelling ocean,Where vessels go, riding the waves,How many, for love and devotion,Now slumber in warriors' graves!No memorials have yet been erectedTo mark where these warriors lie.All alone, save by angels protected,They sleep 'neath the sea and the sky!But think not that they are forgottenBy those who the carnage survive:When their headboards will all have grown rotten,And the night-winds have levelled their graves,Then hundreds of sisters and mothers,Whose freedom they perished to save,And fathers, and empty-sleeved brothers,Who surmounted the battle's red wave;Will crowd from their homes in the Southward,In search of the loved and the blest,And, rejoicing, will soon return homewardAnd lay our dear martyrs to rest.
Though other lands may boast of skiesFar deeper in their blue,Where flowers, in Eden's pristine dyes,Bloom with a richer hue;And other nations pride in kings,And worship lordly powers;Yet every voice of nature sings,There is no land like ours!
Though other scenes, than such as graceOur forests, fields, and plains,May lend the earth a sweeter faceWhere peace incessant reigns;But dearest still to me the landWhere sunshine cheers the hours,For God hath shown, with his own hand,There is no land like ours!
Though other streams may softer flowIn vales of classic bloom,And rivers clear as crystal glow,That wear no tinge of gloom;Though other mountains lofty look,And grand seem olden towers,We see, as in an open book,There is no land like ours!
Though other nations boast of deedsThat live in old renown,And other peoples cling to creedsThat coldly on us frown;On pure religion, love, and lawAre based our ruling powers--The world but feels, with wondering awe,There is no land like ours!Though other lands may boast their brave,Whose deeds are writ in fame,Their heroes ne'er such glory gaveAs gilds our country's name;Though others rush to daring deeds,Where the darkening war-cloud lowers,Here, each alike for freedom bleeds--There is no land like ours!
Though other lands NapoleonAnd Wellington adorn,America, her Washington,And later heroes born;Yet Johnston, Jackson, Price, and Lee,Bragg, Buckner, Morgan towers,With Beauregard, and Hood, and Bee--There is no land like ours!
The enemy, from his camp on Morris Island, has, in frequent letters in the Northern papers, avowed the object at which they aim their shells in Charleston to be the spire of St. Michael's Church. Theirpracticeshows that these avowals are true. Thus far, they have not succeeded in their aim. Angels of the Churches, is a phrase applied by St. John in reference to the Seven Churches of Asia. The Hebrews recognized an Angel of the Church, in their language, "Sheliack-Zibbor," whose office may be described as that of a watcher or guardian of the church. Daniel says, iv. 13, "Behold, a watcher and a Holy one came down from Heaven." The practice of naming churches after tutelary saints, originated, no doubt, in the conviction that, where the church was pure, and the faith true, and the congregation pious, these guardian angels, so chosen, would accept the office assigned them. They were generally chosen from the Seraphim and Cherubim--those who, according to St. Paul (1 Colossians xvi.), represented thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers. According to the Hebrew traditions, St. Michael was the head of the first order; Gabriel, of the second; Uriel, of the third; and Raphael, of the fourth. St. Michael is the warrior angel who led the hosts of the sky against the powers of the princes of the air; who overthrew the dragon, and trampled him under foot. The destruction of the Anaconda, in his hands, would be a smaller undertaking. Assuming for our people a hope not less rational than that of the people of Nineveh, we may reasonably build upon the guardianship and protection of God, through his angels, "a great city of sixty thousand souls," which has been for so long a season the subject of his care. These notes will supply the adequate illustrations for the ode which follows.
Aye, strike with sacrilegious aimThe temple of the living God;Hurl iron bolt and seething flameThrough aisles which holiest feet have trod;Tear up the altar, spoil the tomb,And, raging with demoniac ire,Send down, in sudden crash of doom,That grand, old, sky-sustaining spire.
That spire, for full a hundred years,[1]Hath been a people's point of sight;That shrine hath warmed their souls to tears,With strains well worthy Salem's height;The sweet, clear music of its bells,Made liquid soft in Southern air,Still through the heart of memory swells,And wakes the hopeful soul to prayer.
Along the shores for many a mile,Long ere they owned a beacon-mark,It caught arid kept the Day-God's smile,The guide for every wandering bark;[2]Averting from our homes the scaithOf fiery bolt, in storm-cloud driven,The Pharos to the wandering faith,It pointed every prayer to Heaven!
Well may ye, felons of the time,Still loathing all that's pure and free,Add this to many a thousand crime'Gainst peace and sweet humanity:Ye, who have wrapped our towns in flame,Defiled our shrines, befouled our homes,But fitly turn your murderous aimAgainst Jehovah's ancient domes.
Yet, though the grand old temple falls,And downward sinks the lofty spire,Our faith is stronger than our walls,And soars above the storm and fire.Ye shake no faith in souls made freeTo tread the paths their fathers trod;To fight and die for liberty,Believing in the avenging God!
Think not, though long his anger stays,His justice sleeps--His wrath is spent;The arm of vengeance but delays,To make more dread the punishment!Each impious hand that lights the torchShall wither ere the bolt shall fall;And the bright Angel of the Church,With seraph shield avert the ball!
For still we deem, as taught of old,That where the faith the altar builds,God sends an angel from his fold,Whose sleepless watch the temple shields,And to his flock, with sweet accord,Yields their fond choice, from THRONES and POWERS;Thus, Michael, with his fiery swordAnd golden shield, still champions ours!
And he who smote the dragon down,And chained him thousand years of time,Need never fear the boa's frown,Though loathsome in his spite and slime.He, from the topmost height, surveysAnd guards the shrines our fathers gave;And we, who sleep beneath his gaze,May well believe his power to save!
Yet, if it be that for our sinOur angel's term of watch is o'er,With proper prayer, true faith must winThe guardian watcher back once more IFaith, brethren of the Church, and prayer--In blood and sackcloth, if it need;And still our spire shall rise in air,Our temple, though our people bleed!
[1] St.. Michael's Church was opened for divine worship, February 1, 1761
[2] "The height of this steeple makes it the principal land-mark for the pilots."--Dalcjio (in 1819).
Shell the old city I shell!Ye myrmidons of Hell;Ye serve your master well,With hellish arts!Hurl down, with bolt and fire,The grand old shrines, the spire;But know, your demon ireSubdues no hearts!
There, we defy ye still,With sworn and resolute will;Courage ye cannot killWhile we have breath!Stone walls your bolts may break,But, ere our souls ye shake,Of the whole land we'll makeOne realm of death!
Dear are our homes! our eyesWeep at their sacrifice;And, with each bolt that flies,Each roof that falls,The pang extorts the tear,That things so precious, dearTo memory, love, and care,Sink with our walls.
Trophies of ancient time,When, with great souls, sublime,Opposing force and crime,Our fathers fought;Relics of golden hours,When, for our shrines and bowers,Genius, with magic powers,Her triumphs wrought!
Each Sabbath-hallowed dome,Each ancient family home,The dear old southwest room,All trellised round;Where gay, bright summer vines,Linked in fantastic twinesWith the sun's blazing lines,Rubied the ground!
Homes, sacred to the past,Which bore the hostile blast,Though Spain, France, Britain castTheir shot and shell!Tombs of the mighty dead,That in our battles bled,When on our infant headThese furies fell!
Halls which the foreign guest Found of each charm possessed, With cheer unstinted blessed, And noblest grace; Where, drawing to her side The stranger, far and wide, Frank courtesy took pride To give him place!
The shaded walks--the bowersWhere, through long summer hours,Young Love first proved his powersTo win the prize;Where every tree has heardSome vows of love preferred,And, with his leaves unstirred,Watch'd lips and eyes.
Gardens of tropic blooms,That, through the shaded rooms,Sent Orient-winged perfumesWith dusk and dawn;The grand old laurel, tall,As sovereign over all,And, from the porch and hall,The verdant lawn.
Oh! when we think of theseOld homes, ancestral trees;Where, in the sun and breeze,At morn and even,Was to enjoy the playOf hearts at holiday,And find, in blooms of May,Foretaste of Heaven!
Where, as we cast our eyesOn thing's of precious prize,Trophies of good and wise,Grand, noble, brave;And think of these, so lateSacred to soul and state,Doomed, as the wreck of fate,By fiend and slave!--
The inevitable pain,Coursing through blood and brain,Drives forth, like winter rain,The bitter tear!We cannot help but weep,From depth of hearts that keepThe memories, dread and deep.To vengeance dear!
Aye, for each tear we shed,There shall be torrents red,Not from the eye-founts fed,But from the veins!Bloody shall be the sweat,Fiends, felons, that shall yetPay retribution's debt,In torture's pains!
Our tears shall naught abate,Of what we owe to hate--To the avenging fate--To earth and Heaven!And, soon or late, the hourShall bring th' atoning power,When, through the clouds that lower,The storm-bolt's driven!
Shell the old city--shell!But, with each rooftree's knell,Vows deep of vengeance fell,Fire soul and eye!With every tear that fallsAbove our stricken wallsEach heart more fiercely calls,"Avenge, or die!"
Never, while such as ye are in the breach,Oh! brothers, sons, and Southrons--never! never!Shall the foul enemy your city reach!For souls and hearts are eager with endeavor;And God's own sanction on your cause, makes holyEach arm that strikes for home, however lowly!--And ye shall conquer by the rolling deep!--And ye shall conquer on the embattled steep!--And ye shall see Leviathan go downA hundred fathoms, with a horrible cryOf drowning wretches, in their agony--While Slaughter wades in gore along the sands,And Terror flies with pleading, outstretched hands,All speechless, but with glassy-staring eyes--Flying to Fate--and fated as he flies;--Seeking his refuge in the tossing wave,That gives him, when the shark has fed, a grave!
Thus saith the Lord of Battles: "Shall it be,That this great city, planted by the sea,With threescore thousand souls--with fanes and spiresReared by a race of unexampled sires--That I have watched, now twice a hundred years,[1]Nursed through long infancy of hopes and fears,Baptized in blood at seasons, oft in tears;Purged with the storm and fire, and bade to growTo greatness, with a progress firm but slow--That being the grand condition of duration--Until it spreads into the mighty nation!And shall the usurper, insolent of power,O'erwhelm it with swift ruin in an hour!And hurl his bolts, and with a dominant will,Say to its mighty heart--'Crouch, and be still!My foot is on your neck! I am your Fate!Can speak your doom, and make you desolate!'
"No! He shall know--I am the Lord of war;And all his mighty hosts but pigmies are!His hellish engines, wrought for human woe,His arts and vile inventions, and his power,My arm shall bring to ruin, swift and low!Even now my bolts are aimed, my storm-clouds lower,And I will arm my people with a faith,Shall make them free of fear, and free of scaith;Arid they shall bear from me a smiting sword,Edged with keen lightning, at whose stroke is pouredA torrent of destruction and swift wrath,Sweeping--the insolent legions from their path!The usurper shall be taught that none shall take--The right to punish and avenge from me:And I will guard my City by the Sea,And save its people for their fathers' sake!"
Selah!--Oh I brothers, sons, and Southrons, rise;To prayer: and lo! the wonder in the skies!The sunbow spans your towers, even while the foeHurls his fell bolt, and rains his iron blow.Toss'd by his shafts, the spray above yon height[1]God's smile hath turned into a golden light;Orange and purple-golden! In that signFind ye fit promise for that voice divine!Hark! 'tis the thunder! Through the murky air,The solemn roll goes echoing far and near!Go forth, and unafraid! His shield is yours!And the great spirits of your earlier day--Your fathers, hovering round your sacred shores--Will guard your bosoms through the unequal fray!Hark to their voices, issuing through the gloom:[2]"The cruel hosts that haunt you, march to doom:Give them the vulture's rites--a naked tomb!And, while ye bravely smite, with fierce endeavor,The foe shall reach your city--never! never!"
[1] Charleston was originally settled in 1671. She is now near 2 years old.
[2]In the late engagement of Fort Sumter, with the enemy's fleet, April 7th, the spray thrown above the walls by their enormous missiles, was formed into a beautiful sunbow, seeing which, General Ripley, with the piety of Constantine, exclaimed: "In hoc signo vinces!"
Charleston Mercury.
What are the war-waves saying,As they compass us around?The dark, ensanguined billows,With their deep and dirge-like sound?Do they murmur of submission;Do they call on us to bowOur necks to the foe triumphantWho is riding o'er us now?
Never! No sound submissiveComes from those waves sublime,Or the low, mysterious voicesAttuned to their solemn chime!For the hearts of our noble martyrsAre the springs of its rich supply;And those deeply mystic murmursEcho their dying cry!
They bid us uplift our bannerOnce more in the name of God;And press to the goal of FreedomBy the paths our Fathers trod:Theypassed o'er their dying brothers;From their pale lips caught the sigh--Theflameof their hearts heroic,From the flash of each closing eye!
Up! Up! for the time is pressing,The red waves close around;--They will lift us on their billowsIf our hearts are faithful found!They will lift us high--exultant,And the craven world shall seeThe Ark of a ransomed peopleAfloat on the crimson sea!
Afloat, with her glorious banner--The cross on its field of red,Its stars, and its white folds wavingIn triumph at her head;Emblem of all that's sacredHeralding Faith to view;Type of unblemished honor;Symbol of all that's true!
Thenwhat can those waves be singingBut an anthem grand, sublime,As they bear for our martyred heroesA wail to the coast of Time?What else as they roll majesticTo the far-off shadowy shore,To join the Eternal chorusWhen Time shall be no more!
All lovers of poetry will know in whose liquid gold I have dipped my brush to illumine the picture.
The splendor falls on bannered wallsOf ancient Moultrie, great in story;And flushes now, his scar-seamed brow,With rays of golden glory!Great in his old renown;Great in the honor thrownAround him by the foe,Had sworn to lay him low!
The glory falls--historic wallsToo weak to cover foes insulting,Become a tower--a sheltering bower--A theme of joy exulting;God, merciful and great,Preserved the high estateOf Moultrie, by His powerThrough the fierce battle-hour!
The splendor fell--his banners swellMajestic forth to catch the shower;Our own lovedbluereceives anewA rich immortal dower!Adown the triple barsOf its companion, sparsOf golden glory stream;On seven-rayed circlet beam!
The glory falls--but not on wallsOf Sumter deemedthe post of duty;A brilliant sphere, it circles clearThe harbor in its beauty;Holding in its embraceThe city's queenly grace;Stern battery and tower,Of manly strength and power,
But brightest falls on Moultrie's walls,Forever there to rest in glory,A hallowed light--on buttress height--Oh, fort, beloved and hoary!Restthereand tell thatfaithShall never suffer scaith;Rest there-and glow afar--Hope's ever-burning star!
Charleston Mercury
Only one killed--in company B,'Twas a trifling loss--one man!A charge of the bold and dashing Lee--While merry enough it was, to seeThe enemy, as he ran.
Only one killed upon our side--Once more to the field they turn.Quietly now the horsemen ride--And pause by the form of the one who died,So bravely, as now we learn.
Their grief for the comrade loved and trueFor a time was unconcealed;They saw the bullet had pierced him throughThat his pain was brief--ah! very fewDie thus, on the battle-field.
The news has gone to his home, afar--Of the short and gallant fight,Of the noble deeds of the young La VarWhose life went out as a falling starIn the skirmish of that night.
"Only one killed! It was my son,"The widowed mother cried.She turned but to clasp the sinking one,Who heard not the words of the victory won,But of him who had bravely died.
Ah! death to her were a sweet relief,The bride of a single year.Oh! would she might, with her weight of grief,Lie down in the dust, with the autumn leafNow trodden and brown and sere!
But no, she must bear through coming lifeHer burden of silent woe,The aged mother and youthful wifeMust live through a nation's bloody strife,Sighing, and waiting to go.
Where the loved are meeting beyond the stars,Are meeting no more to part,They can smile once more through the crystal bars--Where never more will the woe of warsO'ershadow the loving--heart.
Field and Fireside.
Oh! Dixie, dear land of King Cotton,"The home of the brave and the free,"A nation by freedom begotten,The terror of despots to be;Wherever thy banner is streaming,Base tyranny quails at thy feet,And liberty's sunlight is beaming,In splendor of majesty sweet.
CHORUS.--Three cheers for our army so true,Three cheers for Price, Johnston, and Lee;Beauregard and our Davis forever,The pride of the brave and the free!
When Liberty sounds her war-rattle,Demanding her right and her due,The first land that rallies to battleIs Dixie, the shrine of the true;Thick as leaves of the forest in summer,Her brave sons will rise on each plain,And then strike, until each Vandal comerLies dead on the soil he would stain.CHORUS.--Three cheers, etc.
May the names of the dead that we cherish,Fill memory's cup to the brim;May the laurels they've won never perish,"Nor star of their glory grow dim;"May the States of the South never sever,But the champions of freedom e'er be;May they flourish Confederate forever,The boast of the brave and the free.CHORUS.--Three cheers, etc.
[1] "Land of King Cotton" was the favorite song of the Tennessee troops, but especially of the Thirteenth and One Hundred and Fifty-fourth regiments.
You have told me that you love me,That you worship at my shrine;That no purity above meCan on earth be more divine.Though the kind words you have spoken.Sound to me most sweetly strange,Will your pledges ne'er be broken?Will there be in you no change?
If you love me half so wildly--Half so madly as you say,Listen to me, darling, mildly--Would you do aught I would pray?If you would, then hear the thunderOf our country's cannon speak!While by war she's rent asunder,Do not come my love to seek.
If you love me, do not ponder,Do not breathe what you would say,Do not look at me with wonder,Join your country in the fray.Go! your aid and right hand lend her,Breast the tyrant's angry blast:Be her own and my defender--Strike for freedom to the last,
Then I'll vow to love none other,While you nobly dare and do;As you're faithful to our mother,So I'll faithful prove to you.But return not while the thunderLives in one invading sword;Strike the despot's hirelings under--Own no master but the Lord.
While I reclineAt ease beneathThis immemorial pine,Small sphere!--By dusky fingers brought this morning here?And shown with boastful smiles,--I turn thy cloven sheath,Through which the soft white fibres peer,That, with their gossamer bands,Unite, like love, the sea-divided lands,And slowly, thread by thread,Draw forth the folded strands,Than which the trembling line,By whose frail help yon startled spider fledDown the tall spear-grass from his swinging bed,Is scarce more fine;And as the tangled skeinUnravels in my hands,Betwixt me and the noonday light,A veil seems lifted, and for miles and milesThe landscape broadens on my sight,As, in the little boll, there lurked a spellLike that which, in the ocean shell,With mystic sound,Breaks down the narrow walls that hem us round,And turns some city laneInto the restless main,With all his capes and isles!
Yonder bird,--Which floats, as if at rest,In those blue tracts above the thunder, whereNo vapors cloud the stainless air,And never sound is heard,Unless at such rare timeWhen, from the City of the Blest,Rings down some golden chime,--Sees not from his high placeSo vast a cirque of summer spaceAs widens round me in one mighty field,Which, rimmed by seas and sands,Doth hail its earliest daylight in the beamsOf gray Atlantic dawns;And, broad as realms made up of many lands,Is lost afarBehind the crimson hills and purple lawnsOf sunset, among plains which roll their streamsAgainst the Evening Star!And lo!To the remotest point of sight,Although I gaze upon no waste of snow,The endless field is white;And the whole landscape glows,For many a shining league away,With such accumulated lightAs Polar lands would flash beneath a tropic day!Nor lack there (for the vision grows,And the small charm within my hands--More potent even than the fabled one,Which oped whatever golden mysteryLay hid in fairy wood or magic vale,The curious ointment of the Arabian tale--Beyond all mortal senseDoth stretch my sight's horizon, and I seeBeneath its simple influence,As if, with Uriel's crown,I stood in some great temple of the Sun,And looked, as Uriel, down)--Nor lack there pastures rich and fields all greenWith all the common gifts of God,For temperate airs and torrid sheenWeave Edens of the sod;Through lands which look one sea of billowy goldBroad rivers wind their devious ways;A hundred isles in their embraces foldA hundred luminous bays;And through yon purple hazeVast mountains lift their pluméd peaks cloud-crowned;And, save where up their sides the ploughman creeps,An unknown forest girds them grandly round,In whose dark shades a future navy sleeps!Ye stars, which though unseen, yet with me gazeUpon this loveliest fragment of the earth!Thou Sun, that kindlest all thy gentlest raysAbove it, as to light a favorite hearth!Ye clouds, that in your temples in the WestSee nothing brighter than its humblest flowers!And, you, ye Winds, that on the ocean's breastAre kissed to coolness ere ye reach its bowers!Bear witness with me in my song of praise,And tell the world that, since the world began,No fairer land hath fired a poet's lays,Or given a home to man!
But these are charms already widely blown!His be the meed whose pencil's traceHath touched our very swamps with grace,And round whose tuneful wayAll Southern laurels bloom;The Poet of "The Woodlands," unto whomAlike are knownThe flute's low breathing and the trumpet's tone,And the soft west-wind's sighs;But who shall utter all the debt,0 Land! wherein all powers are metThat bind a people's heart,The world doth owe thee at this day,And which it never can repay,Yet scarcely deigns to own!Where sleeps the poet who shall fitly singThe source wherefrom doth springThat mighty commerce which, confinedTo the mean channels of no selfish mart,Goes out to every shoreOf this broad earth, and throngs the sea with shipsThat bear no thunders; hushes hungry lipsIn alien lands;Joins with a delicate web remotest strands;And gladdening rich and poor,Doth gild Parisian domes,Or feed the cottage-smoke of English homes,And only bounds its blessings by mankind!In offices like these, thy mission lies,My Country! and it shall not endAs long as rain shall fall and Heaven bendIn blue above thee; though thy foes be hardAnd cruel as their weapons, it shall guardThy hearthstones as a bulwark; make thee greatIn white and bloodless state;And, haply, as the years increase--Still working through its humbler reachWith that large wisdom which the ages teach--Revive the half-dead dream of universal peace!
As men who labor in that mineOf Cornwall, hollowed out beneath the bedOf ocean, when a storm rolls overhead,Hear the dull booming of the world of brineAbove them, and a mighty muffled roarOf winds and waters, and yet toil calmly on,And split the rock, and pile the massive ore,Or carve a niche, or shape the archéd roof;So I, as calmly, weave my woofOf song, chanting the days to come,Unsilenced, though the quiet summer airStirs with the bruit of battles, and each dawnWakes from its starry silence to the humOf many gathering armies. Still,In that we sometimes hear,Upon the Northern winds the voice of woeNot wholly drowned in triumph, though I knowThe end must crown us, and a few brief yearsDry all our tears,I may not sing too gladly. To Thy willResigned, O Lord! we cannot all forgetThat there is much even Victory must regret.And, therefore, not too longFrom the great burden of our country's wrongDelay our just release!
And, if it may be, saveThese sacred fields of peaceFrom stain of patriot or of hostile blood!Oh, help us Lord! to roll the crimson floodBack on its course, and, while our banners wingNorthward, strike with us! till the Goth shall clingTo his own blasted altar-stones, and craveMercy; and we shall grant it, and dictateThe lenient future of his fateThere, where some rotting ships and trembling quaysShall one day mark the Port which ruled the Western seas.
Two hours, or more, beyond the prime of a blithe April day,The Northman's mailed "Invincibles" steamed up fair Charleston Bay;They came in sullen file, and slow, low-breasted on the wave,Black as a midnight front of storm, and silent as the grave.
A thousand warrior-hearts beat high as those dread monsters drewMore closely to the game of death across the breezeless blue,And twice ten thousand hearts of those who watched the scene afar,Thrill in the awful hush that bides the battle's broadening Star!
Each gunner, moveless by his gun, with rigid aspect stands,The ready linstocks firmly grasped in bold, untrembling hands,So moveless in their marbled calm, their stern heroic guise,They looked like forms of statued stone with burning human eyes!
Our banners on the outmost walls, with stately rustling fold,Flash back from arch and parapet the sunlight's ruddy gold--They mount to the deep roll of drums, and widely-echoing cheers,And then--once more, dark, breathless, hushed, wait the grim cannoneers.
Onward--in sullen file, and slow, low glooming on the wave,Near, nearer still, the haughty fleet glides silent as the grave,When sudden, shivering up the calm, o'er startled flood and shore,Burst from the sacred Island Fort the thunder-wrath of yore![1]
Ha! brutal Corsairs! tho' ye come thrice-cased in iron mail,Beware the storm that's opening now, God's vengeance guides the hail!Ye strive the ruffian types of Might 'gainst law, and truth, and Right,Now quail beneath a sturdier Power, and own a mightier Might!
No empty boast! I for while we speak, more furious, wilder, higher,Dart from the circling batteries a hundred tongues of fire.The waves gleam red, the lurid vault of heaven seems rent above.Fight on! oh! knightly Gentlemen! for faith, and home, and love!
There's not in all that line of flame, one soul that would not rise,To seize the Victor's wreath of blood, tho' Death must give the prize--There's not in all this anxious crowd that throngs the ancient Town,A maid who does not yearn for power to strike one despot down.
The strife grows fiercer! ship by ship the proud Armada sweeps,Where hot from Sumter's raging breast the volleyed lightning leaps;And ship by ship, raked, overborne, 'ere burned the sunset bloom,Crawls seaward, like a hangman's hearse bound to his felon tomb!
Oh! glorious Empress of the Main! from out thy storied spires,Thou well mayst peal thy bells of joy, and light thy festal fires--Since Heaven this day hath striven for thee, hath nerved thy dauntless sons,And thou, in clear-eyed faith hast seen God's Angels near the guns!
[1] Fort Moultrie fired the first gun.