We may hang on the cottage wall,
And the bayonet brave, sharp duty done,
From, the soldier's arm it may fall.
But peace!--no peace! till the same good sword,
Drawn out from its scabbard be,
And the wide world list to my country's word,
And the South! oh, the South, be free!
Charleston Broadside.
Ballad--"What! Have Ye Thought?"
Charleston Mercury.
I.
What! have ye thought to pluck
Victory from chance and luck,
Triumph from clamorous shout, without a will?
Without the heart to brave
All peril to the grave,
And battle on its brink, unshrinking still?
II.
And did ye dream success
Would still unvarying bless
Your arms, nor meet reverse in some dread field?
And shall an adverse hour
Make ye mistrust the power
Of virtue, in your souls, to make your enemy yield?
III.
Oh! from this dreary sleep
Arise, and upward leap,
Nor let your hearts grow palsied with dismay!
Fling out your banner high,
Still challenging the sky,
While thousand strong arms bear it on its way.
IV.
Forth, as a sacred band,
Sworn saviours of the land,
Chosen by God, the champions of the right!
And never doubt that _He_
Who _made_ will _keep_ ye free,
If thus your souls resolve to triumph in the fight!
V.
The felon foe, no more
Trampling the sacred shore,
Shall leave defiling footprint on the sod;
Where, desperate in the strife,
Reckless of wounds and life,
Ye brave your myriad foes beneath the eye of God!
VI.
On brothers, comrades, men,
Rush to the field again;
Home, peace, love, safety--freedom--are the prize!
Strike! while an arm can bear
Weapon--and do not spare--
Ye break a felon bond in every foe that dies!
Missing.
In the cool, sweet hush of a wooded nook,
Where the May buds sprinkle the green old mound,
And the winds, and the birds, and the limpid brook,
Murmur their dreams with a drowsy sound;
Who lies so still in the plushy moss,
With his pale cheek pressed on a breezy pillow,
Couched where the light and the shadows cross
Through the flickering fringe of the willow?
Who lies, alas!
So still, so chill, in the whispering grass?
A soldier clad in the Zouave dress,
A bright-haired man, with his lips apart,
One hand thrown up o'er his frank, dead face,
And the other clutching his pulseless heart,
Lies here in the shadows, cool and dim,
His musket swept by a trailing bough,
With a careless grace in each quiet limb,
And a wound on his manly brow;
A wound, alas!
Whence the warm blood drips on the quiet grass.
The violets peer from their dusky beds,
With a tearful dew in their great, pure eyes;
The lilies quiver their shining heads,
Their pale lips full of a sad surprise;
And the lizard darts through the glistening fern--
And the squirrel rustles the branches hoary;
Strange birds fly out, with a cry, to bathe
Their wings in the sunset glory;
While the shadows pass
O'er the quiet face and the dewy grass.
God pity the bride who waits at home,
With her lily cheeks and her violet eyes,
Dreaming the sweet old dreams of love,
While her lover is walking in Paradise;
God strengthen her heart as the days go by,
And the long, drear nights of her vigil follow,
Nor bird, nor moon, nor whispering wind,
May breathe the tale of the hollow;
Alas! alas!
The secret is safe with the woodland grass.
Ode-"Souls of Heroes."
Charleston Mercury.
Souls of heroes, ascended from fields ye have won,
Still smile on the conflict so greatly begun;
Bring succor to comrade, to brother, to son
Now breasting the battle in ranks of the brave;
And the dastard that loiters, the conflict to shun,
Pursue him with scorn to the grave!
II.
Pursue him with furies that goad to despair,
Hunt him out, where he crouches in crevice and lair,
Drive him forth, while the wife of his bosom cries--"There
Goes the coward that skulks, though his sister and wife
Tremble, nightly, in sleep, overshadowed by fear
Of a sacrifice dearer than life."
III.
There are thousands that loiter, of historied claim,
Who boast of the heritage shrined in each name--
Sting their souls to the quick, till they shrink from the shame
Which dishonors the names and the past of their boast;
Even now they may win the best guerdon of fame,
And retrieve the bright honors they've lost!
IV.
Even now, while their country is torn in the toils,
While the wild boar is raging to raven the spoils,
While the boa is spreading around us the coils
Which would strangle the freedom our ancestors gave;
But each soul must be quickened until it o'er-boils,
Every muscle be corded to save!
V.
Still the cause is the same which, in long ages gone,
Roused up your great sires, so gallantly known,
When, braving the tyrant, the sceptre and throne,
They rushed to the conflict, despising the odds;
Armed with bow, spear, and scythe, and with sling and with stone,
For their homes and their family gods!
VI.
Shall we be less worthy the sacrifice grand,
The heritage noble we took at their hand,
The peace and the comfort, the fruits of the land;
And, sunk in a torpor as hopeless as base,
Recoil from the shock of the Sodomite band,
That would ruin the realm and the race?
VII.
Souls of heroes, ascended from fields ye have won,
Your toils are not closed in the deeds ye have done;
Touch the souls of each laggard and profligate son,
The greed and the sloth, and the cowardice shame;
Till we rise to complete the great work ye've begun,
And with freedom make conquest of fame!
Jackson.
By H. L. Flash, of Galveston, Formerly of Mobile.
Not midst the lightning of the stormy fight,
Nor in the rush upon the vandal foe,
Did kingly death, with his resistless might,
Lay the great leader low.
His warrior soul its earthly shackles broke,
In the full sunshine of a peaceful town:
When all the storm was hushed, the trusty oak
That propped our cause went down.
Though his alone the blood that flecks the ground,
Recalling all his grand heroic deeds,
Freedom herself is writhing with the wound,
And all the country bleeds.
He entered not the nation's promised land,
At the red belching of the cannon's mouth:
But broke the house of bondage with his hand--
The Moses of the South!
O gracious God! not gainless in the loss;
A glorious sunbeam gilds the sternest frown;
And while his country staggers with the cross,
He rises with the crown!
Mobile Advertiser and Register.
Captain Maffit's Ballad of the Sea.
Charleston Mercury.
I.
Though winds are high and skies are dark,
And the stars scarce show us a meteor spark;
Yet buoyantly bounds our gallant barque,
Through billows that flash in a sea of blue;
We are coursing free, like the Viking shark,
And our prey, like him, pursue!
II.
At each plunge of our prow we bare the graves,
Where, heedless of roar among winds and waves,
The dead have slept in their ocean caves,
Never once dreaming--as if no more
They hear, though the Storm-God ramps and raves
From the deeps to the rock-bound shore.
III.
Brave sailors were they in the ancient times,
Heroes or pirates--men of all climes,
That had never an ear for the Sabbath chimes,
Never once called on the priest to be shriven;
They died with the courage that still sublimes,
And, haply, may fit for Heaven.
IV.
Never once asking the when or why,
But ready, all hours, to battle and die,
They went into fight with a terrible cry,
Counting no odds, and, victors or slain,
Meeting fortune or fate, with an equal eye,
Defiant of death and pain.
V.
Dread are the tales of the wondrous deep,
And well do the billows their secrets keep,
And sound should those savage old sailors sleep,
If sleep they may after such a life;
Where every dark passion, alert and aleap,
Made slumber itself a strife.
VI.
What voices of horror, through storm and surge,
Sang in the perishing ear its dirge,
As, raging and rending, o'er Hell's black verge,
Each howling soul sank to its doom;
And what thunder-tones from the deeps emerge,
As yawns for its prey the tomb!
VII.
We plough the same seas which the rovers trod,
But with better faith in the saving God,
And bear aloft and carry abroad
The starry cross, our sacred sign,
Which, never yet sullied by crime or fraud,
Makes light o'er the midnight brine.
VIII.
And we rove not now on a lawless quest,
With passions foul in the hero's breast,
Moved by no greed at the fiend's behest,
Gloating in lust o'er a bloody prey;
But from tyrant robber the spoil to wrest,
And tear down his despot sway!
IX.
'Gainst the spawn of Europe, and all the lands,
British and German--Norway's sands,
Dutchland and Irish--the hireling bands
Bought for butchery--recking no rede,
But, flocking like vultures, with felon hands,
To fatten the rage of greed.
X.
With scath they traverse both land and sea,
And with sacred wrath we must make them flee;
Making the path of the nations free,
And planting peace in the heart of strife;
In the star of the cross, our liberty
Brings light to the world, and life!
XI.
Let Christendom cower 'neath Stripes and Stars,
Cloaking her shame under legal bars,
Not too moral for traffic, but shirking wars,
While the Southern cross, floating topmast high.
Though torn, perchance, by a thousand scars,
Shall light up the midnight sky!
Melt the Bells.
F. Y. Rockett.--Memphis Appeal.
The following lines were written on General Beauregard's appeal to the
people to contribute their bells, that they may be melted into cannon.
Melt the bells, melt the bells,
Still the tinkling on the plains,
And transmute the evening chimes
Into war's resounding rhymes,
That the invaders may be slain
By the bells.
Melt the bells, melt the bells,
That for years have called to prayer,
And, instead, the cannon's roar
Shall resound the valleys o'er,
That the foe may catch despair
From the bells.
Melt the bells, melt the bells,
Though it cost a tear to part
With the music they have made,
Where the friends we love are laid,
With pale cheek and silent heart,
'Neath the bells.
Melt the bells, melt the bells,
Into cannon, vast and grim,
And the foe shall feel the ire
From each heaving lungs of fire,
And we'll put our trust in Him
And the bells.
Melt the bells, melt the bells,
And when foes no more attack,
And the lightning cloud of war
Shall roll thunderless and far,
We will melt the cannon back
Into bells.
Melt the bells, melt the bells,
And they'll peal a sweeter chime,
And remind of all the brave
Who have sunk to glory's grave,
And will sleep thro' coming time
'Neath the bells.
John Pelham.
By James R. Randall.
Just as the spring came laughing through the strife,
With all its gorgeous cheer;
In the bright April of historic life
Fell the great cannoneer.
The wondrous lulling of a hero's breath
His bleeding country weeps--
Hushed in the alabaster arms of death,
Our young Marcellus sleeps.
Nobler and grander than the Child of Rome,
Curbing his chariot steeds;
The knightly scion of a Southern home
Dazzled the land with deeds.
Gentlest and bravest in the battle brunt,
The champion of the truth,
He bore his banner to the very front
Of our immortal youth.
A clang of sabres 'mid Virginian snow,
The fiery pang of shells--
And there's a wail of immemorial woe
In Alabama dells.
The pennon drops that led the sacred band
Along the crimson field;
The meteor blade sinks from the nerveless hand
Over the spotless shield.
We gazed and gazed upon that beauteous face
While 'round the lips and eyes,
Couched in the marble slumber, flashed the grace
Of a divine surprise.
Oh, mother of a blessed soul on high!
Thy tears may soon be shed--
Think of thy boy with princes of the sky,
Among the Southern dead.
How must he smile on this dull world beneath,
Fevered with swift renown--
He--with the martyr's amaranthine wreath
Twining the victor's crown!
"Ye Batteries of Beauregard."
By J. R. Barrick, of Kentucky.
"Ye batteries of Beauregard!"
Pour your hail from Moultrie's wall;
Bid the shock of your deep thunder
On their fleet in terror fall:
Rain your storm of leaden fury
On the black invading host--
Teach them that their step shall never
Press on Carolina's coast.
"Ye batteries of Beauregard!"
Sound the story of our wrong;
Let your tocsin wake the spirit
Of a people brave and strong;
Her proud names of old remember--
Marion, Sumter, Pinckney, Greene;
Swell the roll whose deeds of glory
Side by side with theirs are seen.
"Ye batteries of Beauregard!"
From Savannah on them frown;
By the majesty of Heaven
Strike their "grand armada" down;
By the blood of many a freeman,
By each dear-bought battle-field,
By the hopes we fondly cherish,
Never ye the victory yield.
"Ye batteries of Beauregard!"
All along our Southern coast,
Let, in after-time, your triumphs,
Be a nation's pride and boast;
Send each missile with a greeting
To the vile, ungodly crew;
Make them feel they ne'er can conquer
People to themselves so true.
"Ye batteries of Beauregard!"
By the glories of the past,
By the memory of old Sumter,
Whose renown will ever last,
Speed upon their vaunted legions
Volleys thick of shot and shell,
Bid them welcome, in your glory,
To their own appointed hell.
"When Peace Returns."
Published in the Granada Picket.
By Olivia Tully Thomas.
When "war has smoothed his wrinkled front,"
And meek-eyed peace returning,
Has brightened hearts that long were wont
To sigh in grief and mourning--
How blissful then will be the day
When, from the wars returning,
The weary soldier wends his way
To dear ones that are yearning,
To clasp in true love's fond embrace,
To gaze with looks so tender
Upon the war-worn form and face
Of Liberty's defender;
To count with pride each cruel scar,
That mars the manly beauty,
Of him who proved so brave in war,
So beautiful in duty.
When peace returns, throughout our land,
Glad shouts of welcome render
The gallant few of Freedom's band
Whose cry was "no surrender;"
Who battled bravely to be free
From tyranny's oppressions,
And won, for Southern chivalry,
The homage of all nations!
And when, again, in Southern bowers
The ray of peace is shining,
Her maidens gather fairest flowers,
And honor's wreaths are twining,
To bind the brows victorious
On many a field so gory,
Whose names, renowned and glorious,
Shall live in song and story,
Then will affection's tear be shed,
And pity, joy restraining,
For those, the lost, lamented dead,
Are all beyond our plaining;
They fell in manhood's prime and might;
And we should not weep the story
That tells of Fame, a sacred light,
Above each grave of glory!
The Right above the Wrong.
By John W. Overall.
In other days our fathers' love was loyal, full, and free,
For those they left behind them in the Island of the Sea;
They fought the battles of King George, and toasted him in song,
For then the Right kept proudly down the tyranny of Wrong.
But when the King's weak, willing slaves laid tax upon the tea,
The Western men rose up and braved the Island of the Sea;
And swore a fearful oath to God, those men of iron might,
That in the end the Wrong should die, and up should go the Right.
The King sent over hireling hosts--the Briton, Hessian, Scot--
And swore in turn those Western men, when captured, should be shot;
While Chatham spoke with earnest tongue against the hireling throng,
And mournfully saw the Right go down, and place given to the Wrong.
But God was on the righteous side, and Gideon's sword was out,
With clash of steel, and rattling drum, and freeman's thunder-shout;
And crimson torrents drenched the land through that long, stormy
fight,
But in the end, hurrah! the Wrong was beaten by the Right!
And when again the foemen came from out the Northern Sea,
To desolate our smiling land and subjugate the free,
Our fathers rushed to drive them back, with rifles keen and long,
And swore a mighty oath, the Right should subjugate the Wrong.
And while the world was looking on, the strife uncertain grew,
But soon aloft rose up our stars amid a field of blue;
For Jackson fought on red Chalmette, and won the glorious fight,
And then the Wrong went down, hurrah! and triumph crowned the Right!
The day has come again, when men who love the beauteous South,
To speak, if needs be, for the Right, though by the cannon's mouth;
For foes accursed of God and man, with lying speech and song,
Would bind, imprison, hang the Right, and deify the Wrong.
But canting knave of pen and sword, nor sanctimonious fool,
Shall never win this Southern land, to cripple, bind, and rule;
We'll muster on each bloody plain, thick as the stars of night,
And, through the help of God, the Wrong shall perish by the Right.
Carmen Triumphale.
By Henry Timrod.
Go forth and bid the land rejoice,
Yet not too gladly, oh my song!
Breathe softly, as if mirth would wrong
The solemn rapture of thy voice.
Be nothing lightly done or said
This happy day! Our joy should flow
Accordant with the lofty woe
That wails above the noble dead.
Let him whose brow and breast were calm
While yet the battle lay with God,
Look down upon the crimson sod
And gravely wear his mournful palm;
And him, whose heart still weak from fear
Beats all too gayly for the time,
Know that intemperate glee is crime
While one dead hero claims a tear.
Yet go thou forth, my song! and thrill,
With sober joy, the troubled days;
A nation's hymn of grateful praise
May not be hushed for private ill.
Our foes are fallen! Flash, ye wires!
The mighty tidings far and nigh!
Ye cities! write them on the sky
In purple and in emerald fires!
They came with many a haughty boast;
Their threats were heard on every breeze;
They darkened half the neighboring seas,
And swooped like vultures on the coast.
False recreants in all knightly strife,
Their way was wet with woman's tears;
Behind them flamed the toil of years,
And bloodshed stained the sheaves of life.
They fought as tyrants fight, or slaves;
God gave the dastards to our hands;
Their bones are bleaching on the sands,
Or mouldering slow in shallow graves.
What though we hear about our path
The heavens with howls of vengeance rent;
The venom of their hate is spent;
We need not heed their fangless wrath.
Meantime the stream they strove to chain
Now drinks a thousand springs, and sweeps
With broadening breast, and mightier deeps,
And rushes onward to the main;
While down the swelling current glides
Our ship of state before the blast,
With streamers poured from every mast,
Her thunders roaring from her sides.
Lord! bid the frenzied tempest cease,
Hang out thy rainbow on the sea!
Laugh round her, waves! in silver glee,
And speed her to the ports of peace!
The Fiend Unbound.
Charleston Mercury.
I.
No more, with glad and happy cheer,
And smiling face, doth Christmas come,
But usher'd in with sword and spear,
And beat of the barbarian drum!
No more, with ivy-circled brow,
And mossy beard all snowy white,
He comes to glad the children now,
With sweet and innocent delight.
II.
The merry dance, the lavish feast,
The cheery welcome, all are o'er:
The music of the viol ceased,
The gleesome ring around the floor.
No glad communion greets the hour,
That welcomes in a Saviour's birth,
And Christmas, to a hostile power,
Yields all the sway that made its mirth.
III.
The Church, like some deserted bride,
In trembling, at the Altar waits,
While, raging fierce on every side,
The foe is thundering at her gates.
No ivy green, nor glittering leaves,
Nor crimson berries, deck her walls:
But blood, red dripping from her eaves,
Along the sacred pavement falls.
IV.
Her silver bells no longer chime
In summons to her sacred home;
Nor holy song at matin prime,
Proclaims the God within the dome.
Nor do the fireside's happy bands
Assemble fond, with greetings dear,
While Patriarch Christmas spreads his hands
To glad with gifts and crown with cheer.
V.
In place of that beloved form,
Benignant, bland, and blessing all,
Comes one begirt with fire and storm,
The raging shell, the hissing ball!
Type of the Prince of Peace, no more,
Evoked by those who bear His name,
THE FIEND, in place of SAINT of yore,
Now hurls around Satanic flame.
VI.
In hate,--evoked by kindred lands,
But late beslavering with caress,
Lo, Moloch, dripping crimson, stands,
And curses where he cannot bless.
He wings the bolt and hurls the spear,
A _demon loosed_, that rends in rage,
Sends havoc through the homes most dear,
And butchers youth and tramples age!
VII.
With face of Fox--with glee that grins,
And apish arms, with fingers claw'd,
To snatch at all his brother wins,
And straight secrete, with stealth and fraud;--
Lo! Mammon, kindred Demon, comes,
And lurks, as dreading ill, in rear;
He blows the trumpet, beats the drums,
Inflames the torch, and sharps the spear!
VIII.
And furious, following in their train,
What hosts of lesser Demons rise;
Lust, Malice, Hunger, Greed and Gain,
Each raging for its special prize.
Too base for freedom, mean for toil,
And reckless all of just and right,
They rage in peaceful homes for spoil,
And where they cannot butcher, blight.
IX.
A Serpent lie from every mouth,
Coils outward ever,--sworn to bless;
Yet, through the gardens of the South,
Still spreading evils numberless,
By locust swarms the fields are swept,
By frenzied hands the dwelling flames,
And virgin beds, where Beauty slept,
Polluted blush, from worst of shames.
X.
The Dragon, chain'd for thousand years,
Hath burst his bonds and rages free;--
Yet, patience, brethren, stay your fears;--
Loosed for "a little season,"[1] he
Will soon, beneath th' Ithuriel sword,
Of heavenly judgment, crush'd and driven,
Yield to the vengeance of the Lord,
And crouch beneath the wrath of Heaven!
XI.
"A little season," and the Peace,
That now is foremost in your prayers,
Shall crown your harvest with increase,
And bless with smiles the home of tears;
Your wounds be healed; your noble sons,
Unhurt, unmutilated--free--
Shall limber up their conquering guns,
In triumph grand of Liberty!
XII.
A few more hours of mortal strife,--
Of faith and patience, working still,
In struggle for the immortal life,
With all their soul, and strength, and will;
And, in the favor of the Lord,
And powerful grown by heavenly aid,
Your roof trees all shall be restored,
And ye shall triumph in their shade.
[1] "1. And I saw an Angel come down from Heaven, having the key of the
bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
"2. And he laid hold on the Dragon, that Old Serpent, which is the Devil
and Satan, and bound him a thousand years.
"And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal
upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand
years should be fulfilled; and _after that he must be loosed a little
season_."--Rev. xx., v. 1-3.
The Unknown Dead.
By Henry Timrod.
The rain is plashing on my sill,
But all the winds of Heaven are still;
And so, it falls with that dull sound
Which thrills us in the churchyard ground,
When the first spadeful drops like lead
Upon the coffin of the dead.
Beyond my streaming window-pane,
I cannot see the neighboring vane,
Yet from its old familiar tower
The bell comes, muffled, through the shower.
What strange and unsuspected link
Of feeling touched has made me think--
While with a vacant soul and eye
I watch that gray and stony sky--
Of nameless graves on battle plains,
Washed by a single winter's rains,
Where, some beneath Virginian hills,
And some by green Atlantic rills,
Some by the waters of the West,
A myriad unknown heroes rest?
Ah! not the chiefs who, dying, see
Their flags in front of victory,
Or, at their life-blood's noblest cost
Pay for a battle nobly lost,
Claim from their monumental beds
The bitterest tears a nation sheds.
Beneath yon lonely mound--the spot,
By all save some fond few forgot--
Lie the true martyrs of the fight,
Which strikes for freedom and for right.
Of them, their patriot zeal and pride,
The lofty faith that with them died,
No grateful page shall further tell
Than that so many bravely fell;
And we can only dimly guess
What worlds of all this world's distress,
What utter woe, despair, and dearth,
Their fate has brought to many a hearth.
Just such a sky as this should weep
Above them, always, where they sleep;
Yet, haply, at this very hour,
Their graves are like a lover's bower;
And Nature's self, with eyes unwet,
Oblivious of the crimson debt
To which she owes her April grace,
Laughs gayly o'er their burial place.
Ode--"Do Ye Quail?"
By W. Gilmore Simms.
I.