1763. Colonial History--Progress,
1776. American Revolution.
1812-15. Second War with Great Britain
1830-32. Nullification for State Rights.
1835-40. Florida War.
1847. Mexican War--Palmetto Regiment.
1860-61. Secession, and Third War for Independence.
My brave old Country! I have watched thee long
Still ever first to rise against the wrong;
To check the usurper in his giant stride,
And brave his terrors and abase his pride;
Foresee the insidious danger ere it rise,
And warn the heedless and inform the wise;
Scorning the lure, the bribe, the selfish game,
Which, through the office, still becomes the shame;
Thou stood'st aloof--superior to the fate
That would have wrecked thy freedom as a State.
In vain the despot's threat, his cunning lure;
Too proud thy spirit, and thy heart too pure;
Thou hadst no quest but freedom, and to be
In conscience well-assured, and people free.
The statesman's lore was thine, the patriot's aim,
These kept thee virtuous, and preserved thy fame;
The wisdom still for council, the brave voice,
That thrills a people till they all rejoice.
These were thy birthrights; and two centuries pass'd,
As, at the first, still find thee at the last;
Supreme in council, resolute in will,
Pure in thy purpose--independent still!
The great good counsels, the examples brave,
Won from the past, not buried in its grave,
Still warm your soul with courage--still impar
Wisdom to virtue, valor to the heart!
Still first to check th' encroachment--to declare
"Thus far! no further, shall the assailant dare;"
Thou keep'st thy ermine white, thy State secure,
Thy fortunes prosperous, and thy freedom sure;
No glozing art deceives thee to thy bane;
The tempter and the usurper strive in vain!
Thy spear's first touch unfolds the fiendish form,
And first, with fearless breast, thou meet'st the storm;
Though hosts assail thee, thou thyself a host,
Prepar'st to meet the invader on the coast:
Thy generous sons contending which shall be
First in the phalanx, gathering by the sea;
No dastard fear appals them, as they teach
How best to hurl the bolt, or man the breach!
Great Soul in little frame!--the hope of man
Exults, when such as thou art in the van!
Unshaken, unbeguiled, unslaved, unbought,
Thy fame shall brighten with each battle fought;
True to the examples of the past, thou'lt be,
For the long future, best security.
Charleston Mercury.
Gossypium.
Carolina.
By Henry Timrod.
I.
The despot treads thy sacred sands,
Thy pines give shelter to his bands,
Thy sons stand by with idle hands,
Carolina!
He breathes at ease thy airs of balm,
He scorns the lances of thy palm;
Oh I who shall break thy craven calm,
Carolina!
Thy ancient fame is growing dim,
A spot is on thy garment's rim;
Give to the winds thy battle hymn,
Carolina!
II.
Call on thy children of the hill,
Wake swamp and river, coast and rill,
Rouse all thy strength and all thy skill,
Carolina!
Cite wealth and science, trade and art,
Touch with thy fire the cautious mart,
And pour thee through the people's heart,
Carolina!
Till even the coward spurns his fears,
And all thy fields, and fens, and meres,
Shall bristle like thy palm, with spears,
Carolina!
III.
Hold up the glories of thy dead;
Say how thy elder children bled,
Arid point to Eutaw's battle-bed,
Carolina!
Tell how the patriot's soul was tried,
And what his dauntless breast defied;
How Rutledge ruled, and Laurens died,
Carolina!
Cry! till thy summons, heard at last,
Shall fall, like Marion's bugle-blast,
Re-echoed from the haunted past,
Carolina!
IV.
I hear a murmur, as of waves
That grope their way through sunless caves,
Like bodies struggling in their graves,
Carolina!
And now it deepens; slow and grand
It swells, as rolling to the land
An ocean broke upon the strand,
Carolina!
Shout! let it reach the startled Huns!
And roar with all thy festal guns!
It is the answer of thy sons,
Carolina!
V.
They will not wait to hear thee call;
From Sachem's head to Sumter's wall
Resounds the voice of hut and hall,
Carolina!
No! thou hast not a stain, they say,
Or none save what the battle-day
Shall wash in seas of blood away,
Carolina!
Thy skirts, indeed, the foe may part,
Thy robe be pierced with sword and dart,
They shall not touch thy noble heart,
Carolina!
VI.
Ere thou shalt own the tyrant's thrall,
Ten times ten thousand men must fall;
Thy corpse may hearken to his call,
Carolina!
When by thy bier, in mournful throngs,
The women chant thy mortal wrongs,
'Twill be their own funereal songs,
Carolina!
From thy dead breast, by ruffians trod,
No helpless child shall look to God;
All shall be safe beneath thy sod,
Carolina!
VII.
Girt with such wills to do and bear,
Assured in right, and mailed in prayer,
Thou wilt not bow thee to despair,
Carolina!
Throw thy bold banner to the breeze!
Front with thy ranks the threatening seas,
Like thine own proud armorial trees,
Carolina!
Fling down thy gauntlet to the Huns,
And roar the challenge from thy guns;
Then leave the future to thy sons,
Carolina!
My Mother-Land.
By Paul H. Hayne.
_"Animis, Opibusque Parati."_
My Mother-land! thou wert the first to fling
Thy virgin flag of freedom to the breeze,
The first to humble, in thy neighboring seas,
The imperious despot's power;
But long before that hour,
While yet, in false and vain imagining,
Thy sister nations would not own their foe,
And turned to jest thy warnings, though the low,
Deep, awful mutterings, that precede the throe
Of earthquakes, burdened all the ominous air;
While yet they paused in scorn,
Of fatal madness born,--
Thou, oh, my Mother! like a priestess bless'd
With wondrous vision of the things to come,
Thou couldst not calmly rest
Secure and dumb--
But from thy borders, with the sounds of drum
And trumpet, came the thrilling note, "PREPARE!"
"Prepare for what?" thy careless sisters said;
"We see no threatening tempest overhead,
Only a few pale clouds, the west wind's breath
Will sweep away, or melt in watery death."
"Prepare!" the time grows ripe to meet our doom!
Alas! it was not till the thunder-boom
Of shell and cannon shocked the vernal day,
Which shone o'er Charleston Bay--
When the tamed "Stars and Stripes" before us bowed--
That startled, roused, the last scale fallen away
From, blinded eyes, our SOUTH, erect and proud,
Fronted the issue, and, though lulled too long,
Felt her great spirit nerved, her patriot valor strong.
But darker days have found us--'gainst the horde
Of robber Northmen, who, with torch and sword,
Approach to desecrate
The sacred hearthstone and the Temple-gate--
Who would defile our fathers' graves, and cast
Their ashes to the blast--
Yea! who declare, "we will annihilate
The very bound-lines of your sovereign State"--
Against this ravening flood
Of foul invaders, drunk with lust and blood,
Oh! we,
Strong in the strength of God-supported might,
Go forth to give our foe no paltry fight,
Nor basely yield
To venal legions a scarce blood-dewed field--
But witness, Heaven! if such the need should be,
To make our fated land one vast Thermopylæ!
Death! What of Death?--
Can he who once drew honorable breath
In liberty's pure sphere,
Foster a sensual fear,
When death and slavery meet him face to face,
Saying: "Choose thou between us; here, the grace
Which follows patriot martyrdom, and there,
Black degradation, haunted by despair."
Death! What of Death?--
The vilest reptiles, brutes or men, who crawl
Across their portion of this earthly ball,
Share life and motion with us; would we strive
Like such to creep alive,
Polluted, loathsome, only that with sin
We still might keep our mortal breathings in?
The very thought brings blushes to the cheek!
I hear all 'round about me murmurs run,
Hot murmurs, but soon merging into ONE
Soul-stirring utterance--hark! the people speak:
"Our course is righteous, and our aims are just!
Behold, we seek
Not merely to preserve for noble wives
The virtuous pride of unpolluted lives,
To shield our daughters from the ruffian's hand,
And leave our sons their heirloom of command,
In generous perpetuity of trust;
Not only to defend those ancient laws,
Which Saxon sturdiness and Norman fire
Welded forevermore with freedom's cause,
And handed scathless down from sire to sire--
Nor yet, our grand religion, and our Christ,
Undecked by upstart creeds and vulgar charms,
(Though these had sure sufficed
To urge the feeblest Sybarite to arms)--
But more than all, because embracing all,
Insuring all, SELF-GOVERNMENT, the boon
Our patriot statesmen strove to win and keep,
From prescient Pinckney and the wise Calhoun
To him, that gallant Knight,
The youngest champion in the Senate hall,
Who, led and guarded by a luminous fate,
His armor, Courage, and his war-horse, Right,
Dared through the lists of eloquence to sweep
Against the proud Bois Guilbert of debate![1]
"There's not a tone from out the teeming past,
Uplifted once in such a cause as ours,
Which does not smite our souls
In long reverberating thunder-rolls,
From the far mountain-steeps of ancient story.
Above the shouting, furious Persian mass,
Millions arrayed in pomp of Orient powers,
Rings the wild war-cry of Leonidas
Pent in his rugged fortress of the rock;
And o'er the murmurous seas,
Compact of hero-faith and patriot bliss,
(For conquest crowns the Athenian's hope at last),
Gome the clear accents of Miltiades,
Mingled with cheers that drown the battle-shock
Beside the wave-washed strand of Salamis.
"Where'er on earth the self-devoted heart
Hath been by worthy deeds exalted thus,
We look for proud exemplars; yet for us
It is enough to know
_Our fathers left us freemen_; let us show
The will to hold our lofty heritage,
The patient strength to act our fathers' part--
Brothers on history's page,
We wait to write our autographs in gore,
To cast the morning brightness of our glory
Beyond our day and hope,
The narrow limit of _one_ age's scope,
On Time's remotest shore!
"Yea! though our children's blood
Kain 'round us in a crimson-swelling flood,
Why pause or falter?--that red tide shall bear
The Ark that holds our shrined liberty,
Nearer, and yet more near
Some height of promise o'er the ensanguined sea.
"At last, the conflict done,
The fadeless meed of final victory won--
Behold! emerging from the rifted dark
Athwart a shining summit high in heaven,
That delegated Ark!
No more to be by vengeful tempests driven,
But poised upon the sacred mount, whereat
The congregated nations gladly gaze,
Struck by the quiet splendor of the rays
That circle Freedom's blood-bought Ararat!"
Thus spake the people's wisdom; unto me
Its voice hath come, a passionate augury!
Methinks the very aspect of the world
Changed to the mystic music of its hope.
For, lo! about the deepening heavenly cope
The stormy cloudland banners all are furled,
And softly borne above
Are brooding pinions of invisible love,
Distilling balm of rest and tender thought
From fairy realms, by fairy witchery wrought
O'er the hushed ocean steal celestial gleams
Divine as light that haunts a poet's dreams;
And universal nature, wheresoever
My vision strays--o'er sky, and sea, and river--
Sleeps, like a happy child,
In slumber undefiled,
A premonition of sublimer days,
When war and warlike lays
At length shall cease,
Before a grand Apocalypse of Peace,
Vouchsafed in mercy to all human kind--
A prelude and a prophecy combined!
[1]Everybody must remember the famous tournament scene in "Ivanhoe." Of
course the author, in drawing a comparison between that chivalric battle
and the contest upon "Foote's Resolutions" in the great Senatorial debate
of 1832, would be understood as _not_ pushing the comparison further
than the _first_ shock of arms between Bois Guilbert and his youthful
opponent, which Scott tells us was the most spirited encounter of the day.
Both the knights' lances were fairly broken, and they parted, with no
decisive advantage on either side.
Joe Johnston.
By John R. Thompson.
Once more to the breach for the land of the West!
And a leader we give of our bravest and best,
Of his State and his army the pride;
Hope shines like the plume of Navarre on his crest,
And gleams in the glaive at his side.
For his courage is keen, and his honor is bright
As the trusty Toledo[1] he wears to the fight,
Newly wrought in the forges of Spain;
And this weapon, like all he has brandished for right,
Will never be dimmed by a stain.
He leaves the loved, soil of Virginia behind,
Where the dust of his fathers is fitly enshrined,
Where lie the fresh fields of his fame;
Where the murmurous pines, as they sway in the wind,
Seem ever to whisper his name.
The Johnstons have always borne wings on their spurs,
And their motto a noble distinction confers--
"Ever ready!" for friend or for foe--
With a patriot's fervor the sentiment stirs
The large, manly heart of our JOE.
We read that a former bold chief of the clan,
Fell, bravely defending the West, in the van,
On Shiloh's illustrious day;
And with reason we reckon our Johnston's the man
The dark, bloody debt to repay.
There is much to be done; if not glory to seek,
There's a just and terrible vengeance to wreak
For crimes of a terrible dye;
While the plaint of the helpless, the wail of the weak,
In a chorus rise up to the sky.
For the Wolf of the North we once drove to his den,
That quailed with affright 'neath the stern glance of men,
With his pack has returned to the spoil;
Then come from the mountain, the hamlet, the glen,
And drive him again from your soil.
Brave-born Tennesseeans, so loyal, so true,
Who have hunted the beast in your highlands, of you
Our leader had never a doubt;
You will troop by the thousand the chase to renew,
The day that his bugles ring out.
But ye "Hunters," so famed, "of Kentucky" of yore,
Where now are the rifles that kept from your door
The wolf and the robber as well?
Of a truth, you have never been laggard before
To deal with a savage so fell.
Has the love you once bore to your country grown cold?
Has the fire on the altar died out? do you hold
Your lives than your freedom more dear?
Can you shamefully barter your birthright for gold,
Or basely take counsel of fear?
We will not believe it; Kentucky, the land
Of a Clay, will not tamely submit to the brand
That disgraces the dastard, the slave:
The hour of redemption draws nigh, is at hand,
Her own sons her own honor shall save!
Mighty men of Missouri, come forth to the call,
When the rush of your rivers, when tempests appal,
And the torrents their sources unseal;
And this be the watchword of one and of all--
"Remember the butcher, McNeil!"
Then once more to the breach for the land of the West;
Strike home for your hearths--for the lips you love best;
Follow on where your leader you see;
One flash of his sword, when the foe is hard pressed,
And the land of the West shall be free!
[Footnote 1: General Johnston carries with him a beautiful blade, recently
presented to him, bearing the mark of the Royal Manufactory of Toledo,
1862.]
Over the River.
By Jane T. H. Cross.
Published in the Nashville Christian Advocate, 1861.
We hail your "stripes" and lessened "stars,"
As one may hail a neighbor;
Now forward move! no fear of jars,
With nothing but free labor;
And we will mind our slaves and farm,
And never wish you any harm,
But greet you--_over the river_.
The self-same language do we speak,
The same dear words we utter;
Then let's not make each other weak,
Nor 'gainst each other mutter;
But let each go his separate way,
And each will doff his hat, and say:
"I greet you--over the river!"
Our flags, almost the same, unfurl,
And nod across the border;
Ohio's waves between them curl--
_Our stripe's a little broader_;
May yours float out on every breeze,
And, _in our wake_, traverse all seas--
We greet you--over the river!
We part, as friends of years should part,
With pleasant words and wishes,
And no desire is in our heart
For Lincoln's loaves and fishes;
"Farewell," we wave you from afar,
We like you best--just where you are--
And greet you--over the river!
The Confederacy.
By Jane T. H. Cross.
Published in the Southern Christian Advocated.
Born in a day, full-grown, our Nation stood,
The pearly light of heaven was on her face;
Life's early joy was coursing in her blood;
A thing she was of beauty and of grace.
She stood, a stranger on the great broad earth,
No voice of sympathy was heard to greet
The glory-beaming morning of her birth,
Or hail the coming of the unsoiled feet.
She stood, derided by her passing foes;
Her heart beat calmly 'neath their look of scorn;
Their rage in blackening billows round her rose--
Her brow, meanwhile, as radiant as the morn.
Their poisonous coils about her limbs are cast,
She shakes them off in pure and holy ire,
As quietly as Paul, in ages past,
Shook off the serpent in the crackling fire.
She bends not to her foes, nor to the world,
She bears a heart for glory, or for gloom;
But with her starry cross, her flag unfurled,
She kneels amid the sweet magnolia bloom.
She kneels to Thee, O God, she claims her birth,
She lifts to Thee her young and trusting eye,
She asks of Thee her place upon the earth--
For it is Thine to give or to deny.
Oh, let _Thine_ eye but recognize her right!
Oh, let _Thy_ voice but justify her claim!
Like grasshoppers are nations in Thy sight,
And all their power is but an empty name,
Then listen, Father, listen to her prayer!
Her robes are dripping with her children's blood;
Her foes around "like bulls of Bashan stare,"
They fain would sweep her off, "as with a flood."
The anguish wraps her close around, like death,
Her children lie in heaps about her slain;
Before the world she bravely holds her breath,
Nor gives one utterance to a note of pain.
But 'tis not like Thee to forget the oppressed,
Thou feel'st within her heart the stifled moan--
Thou Christ! Thou Lamb of God! oh, give her rest!
For Thou hast called her!--is she not Thine own?
President Davis.
By Jane T. H. Cross.
Published in the New York News, 1865.
The cell is lonely, and the night
Has filled it with a darker gloom;
The little rays of friendly light,
Which through each crack and chink found room
To press in with their noiseless feet,
All merciful and fleet,
And bring, like Noah's trembling dove,
God's silent messages of love--
These, too, are gone,
Shut out, and gone,
And that great heart is left alone.
Alone, with darkness and with woe,
Around him Freedom's temple lies,
Its arches crushed, its columns low,
The night-wind through its ruin sighs;
Rash, cruel hands that temple razed,
Then stood the world amazed!
And now those hands--ah, ruthless deeds!
Their captive pierce--his brave heart bleeds;
And yet no groan
Is heard, no groan!
He suffers silently, alone.
For all his bright and happy home,
He has that cell, so drear and dark,
The narrow walls, for heaven's blue dome,
The clank of chains, for song of lark;
And for the grateful voice of friends--
That voice which ever lends
Its charm where human hearts are found--
He hears the key's dull, grating sound;
No heart is near,
No kind heart near,
No sigh of sympathy, no tear!
Oh, dream not thus, thou true and good!
Unnumbered hearts on thee await,
By thee invisibly have stood,
Have crowded through thy prison-gate;
Nor dungeon bolts, nor dungeon bars,
Nor floating "stripes and stars,"
Nor glittering gun or bayonet,
Can ever cause us to forget
Our faith to thee,
Our love to thee,
Thou glorious soul! thou strong! _thou free!_
The Rifleman's "Fancy Shot."
"Rifleman, shoot me a fancy shot,
Straight at the heart of yon prowling vidette;
Ring me a ball on the glittering spot
That shines on his breast like an amulet."
"Ah, captain! here goes for a fine-drawn bead;
There's music around when my barrel's in tune."
Crack! went the rifle; the messenger sped,
And dead from his horse fell the ringing dragoon.
"Now, rifleman, steal through the bushes, and snatch
From your victim some trinket to handsel first blood:
A button, a loop, or that luminous patch
That gleams in the moon like a diamond stud."
"Oh, captain! I staggered, and sank in my track,
When I gazed on the face of the fallen vidette;
For he looked so like you, as he lay on his back,
That my heart rose upon me, and masters me yet.
"But I snatched off the trinket--this locket of gold;
An inch from the centre my lead broke its way,
Scarce grazing the picture, so fair to behold,
Of a beautiful lady in bridal array."
"Ha! rifleman! fling me the locket--'tis she!
My brother's young bride; and the fallen dragoon.
Was her husband. Hush, soldier!--'twas heaven's deer
We must bury him there, by the light of the moon.
"But hark! the far bugles their warning unite;
War is a virtue, and weakness a sin;
There's a lurking and lopping around us to-night:
Load again, rifleman, keep your hand in!"
"All Quiet Along the Potomac To-Night."
By Lamar Fontaine.
[The claim to the authorship of this poem, which Fontaine alleges, has
been disputed in behalf of a lady of New York, but she herself continues
silent on the subject.]
"All quiet along the Potomac to-night!"
Except here and there a stray picket
Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro,
By a rifleman hid in the thicket.
'Tis nothing! a private or two now and then
Will not count in the news of a battle;
Not an officer lost! only one of the men
Moaning out, all alone, the death-rattle.
All quiet along the Potomac to-night!
Where soldiers lie peacefully dreaming;
And their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon,
And the light of their camp-fires are gleaming.
A tremulous sigh, as a gentle night-wind
Through the forest leaves slowly is creeping;
While the stars up above, with their glittering eyes,
Keep guard o'er the army while sleeping.
There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread,
As he tramps from the rock to the fountain,
And thinks of the two on the low trundle bed,
Far away, in the cot on the mountain.
His musket falls slack, his face, dark and grim,
Grows gentle with memories tender,
As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep,
And their mother--"may heaven defend her!"
The moon seems to shine forth as brightly as then--
That night, when the love, yet unspoken,
Leaped up to his lips, and when low-murmured vows
Were pledged to be ever unbroken.
Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes,
He dashes off tears that are welling;
And gathers his gun closer up to his breast,
As if to keep down the heart's swelling.
He passes the fountain, the blasted pine-tree,
And his footstep is lagging and weary;
Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light,
Towards the shades of the forest so dreary.
Hark! was it the night-wind that rustled the leaves?
Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing?
It looked like a rifle: "Ha! Mary, good-by!"
And his life-blood is ebbing and splashing.
"All quiet along the Potomac to-night!"
No sound save the rush of the river;
While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead,
And the picket's off duty forever!
Address
Delivered at the opening of the new theatre at Richmond.
A Prize Poem.--By Henry Timrod.
A FAIRY ring
Drawn in the crimson of a battle-plain--
From whose weird circle every loathsome thing
And sight and sound of pain
Are banished, while about it in the air,
And from the ground, and from the low-hung skies,
Throng, in a vision fair
As ever lit a prophet's dying eyes,
Gleams of that unseen world
That lies about us, rainbow-tinted shapes
With starry wings unfurled,
Poised for a moment on such airy capes
As pierce the golden foam
Of sunset's silent main--
Would image what in this enchanted dome,
Amid the night of war and death
In which the armed city draws its breath,
We have built up!
For though no wizard wand or magic cup
The spell hath wrought,
Within this charmed fane we ope the gates
Of that divinest fairy-land
Where, under loftier fates
Than rule the vulgar earth on which we stand,
Move the bright creatures of the realm of thought.