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, scorning
We 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 ignoring
The charter of our nation's birth!
Union with bastard slaves adoring
The 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.
O, Tempora! O, Mores!
By John Dickson Bruns, M. D.
"Great Pan is dead!" so cried an airy tongue
To 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 forget
In 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 taught
Are scorned and jeered at; in our sordid marts
We sell the faith for which they toiled and fought.
Each jostling each in the mad strife for gold,
The weaker trampled by the unrecking throng
Friends, 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 still
Smile 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 man
Broods 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 overborne
By 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 vain
Be 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.)
Our Departed Comrades.
By J. Marion Shirer.
I am sitting alone by a fire
That glimmers on Sugar Loaf's height,
But before I to rest shall retire
And put out the fast fading light--
While the lanterns of heaven are ling'ring
In silence all o'er the deep sea,
And loved ones at home are yet mingling
Their voices in converse of me--
While yet the lone seabird is flying
So swiftly far o'er the rough wave,
And many fond mothers are sighing
For the noble, the true, and the brave;
Let me muse o'er the many departed
Who 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 rises
In grandeur above the still wave,
And always at evening discloses
The 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 erected
To 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 forgotten
By 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 homeward
And lay our dear martyrs to rest.
No Land Like Ours.
Published in the Montgomery Advertiser, January, 1863.
By J. R. Barrick, of Kentucky.
Though other lands may boast of skies
Far 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 grace
Our forests, fields, and plains,
May lend the earth a sweeter face
Where peace incessant reigns;
But dearest still to me the land
Where sunshine cheers the hours,
For God hath shown, with his own hand,
There is no land like ours!
Though other streams may softer flow
In 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 deeds
That live in old renown,
And other peoples cling to creeds
That coldly on us frown;
On pure religion, love, and law
Are 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 gave
As 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 Napoleon
And 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 Angel of the Church.
By W. Gilmore Simms.
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. Their _practice_
shows 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.
I.
Aye, strike with sacrilegious aim
The temple of the living God;
Hurl iron bolt and seething flame
Through 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.
II.
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.
III.
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 scaith
Of fiery bolt, in storm-cloud driven,
The Pharos to the wandering faith,
It pointed every prayer to Heaven!
IV.
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 aim
Against Jehovah's ancient domes.
V.
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 free
To tread the paths their fathers trod;
To fight and die for liberty,
Believing in the avenging God!
VI.
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 torch
Shall wither ere the bolt shall fall;
And the bright Angel of the Church,
With seraph shield avert the ball!
VII.
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 sword
And golden shield, still champions ours!
VIII.
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, surveys
And guards the shrines our fathers gave;
And we, who sleep beneath his gaze,
May well believe his power to save!
IX.
Yet, if it be that for our sin
Our angel's term of watch is o'er,
With proper prayer, true faith must win
The guardian watcher back once more I
Faith, 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).
Ode--"Shell the Old City! Shell!"
By W. Gilmore Simms.
I.
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 ire
Subdues no hearts!
II.
There, we defy ye still,
With sworn and resolute will;
Courage ye cannot kill
While we have breath!
Stone walls your bolts may break,
But, ere our souls ye shake,
Of the whole land we'll make
One realm of death!
III.
Dear are our homes! our eyes
Weep at their sacrifice;
And, with each bolt that flies,
Each roof that falls,
The pang extorts the tear,
That things so precious, dear
To memory, love, and care,
Sink with our walls.
IV.
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!
V.
Each Sabbath-hallowed dome,
Each ancient family home,
The dear old southwest room,
All trellised round;
Where gay, bright summer vines,
Linked in fantastic twines
With the sun's blazing lines,
Rubied the ground!
VI.
Homes, sacred to the past,
Which bore the hostile blast,
Though Spain, France, Britain cast
Their shot and shell!
Tombs of the mighty dead,
That in our battles bled,
When on our infant head
These furies fell!
VII.
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!
VIII.
The shaded walks--the bowers
Where, through long summer hours,
Young Love first proved his powers
To win the prize;
Where every tree has heard
Some vows of love preferred,
And, with his leaves unstirred,
Watch'd lips and eyes.
IX.
Gardens of tropic blooms,
That, through the shaded rooms,
Sent Orient-winged perfumes
With dusk and dawn;
The grand old laurel, tall,
As sovereign over all,
And, from the porch and hall,
The verdant lawn.
X.
Oh! when we think of these
Old homes, ancestral trees;
Where, in the sun and breeze,
At morn and even,
Was to enjoy the play
Of hearts at holiday,
And find, in blooms of May,
Foretaste of Heaven!
XI.
Where, as we cast our eyes
On thing's of precious prize,
Trophies of good and wise,
Grand, noble, brave;
And think of these, so late
Sacred to soul and state,
Doomed, as the wreck of fate,
By fiend and slave!--
XII.
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 keep
The memories, dread and deep.
To vengeance dear!
XIII.
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 yet
Pay retribution's debt,
In torture's pains!
XIV.
Our tears shall naught abate,
Of what we owe to hate--
To the avenging fate--
To earth and Heaven!
And, soon or late, the hour
Shall bring th' atoning power,
When, through the clouds that lower,
The storm-bolt's driven!
XV.
Shell the old city--shell!
But, with each rooftree's knell,
Vows deep of vengeance fell,
Fire soul and eye!
With every tear that falls
Above our stricken walls
Each heart more fiercely calls,
"Avenge, or die!"
"The Enemy Shall Never Reach Your City."
Andrew Jackson's Address to the People of New Orleans.
I.
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 holy
Each 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 down
A hundred fathoms, with a horrible cry
Of 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!
II.
Thus saith the Lord of Battles: "Shall it be,
That this great city, planted by the sea,
With threescore thousand souls--with fanes and spires
Reared 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 grow
To 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!'"
III.
"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 poured
A 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!"
IV.
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 foe
Hurls 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 sign
Find 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.
War-Waves.
By Catherine Gendron Poyas, of Charleston.
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 bow
Our necks to the foe triumphant
Who is riding o'er us now?
Never! No sound submissive
Comes from those waves sublime,
Or the low, mysterious voices
Attuned to their solemn chime!
For the hearts of our noble martyrs
Are the springs of its rich supply;
And those deeply mystic murmurs
Echo their dying cry!
They bid us uplift our banner
Once more in the name of God;
And press to the goal of Freedom
By the paths our Fathers trod:
_They_ passed o'er their dying brothers;
From their pale lips caught the sigh--
The _flame_ of 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 billows
If our hearts are faithful found!
They will lift us high--exultant,
And the craven world shall see
The Ark of a ransomed people
Afloat on the crimson sea!
Afloat, with her glorious banner--
The cross on its field of red,
Its stars, and its white folds waving
In triumph at her head;
Emblem of all that's sacred
Heralding Faith to view;
Type of unblemished honor;
Symbol of all that's true!
_Then_ what can those waves be singing
But an anthem grand, sublime,
As they bear for our martyred heroes
A wail to the coast of Time?
What else as they roll majestic
To the far-off shadowy shore,
To join the Eternal chorus
When Time shall be no more!
Old Moultrie.
By Catherine Gendron Poyas, of Charleston.
All lovers of poetry will know in whose liquid gold I have dipped my brush
to illumine the picture.
The splendor falls on bannered walls
Of 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 thrown
Around him by the foe,
Had sworn to lay him low!
The glory falls--historic walls
Too weak to cover foes insulting,
Become a tower--a sheltering bower--
A theme of joy exulting;
God, merciful and great,
Preserved the high estate
Of Moultrie, by His power
Through the fierce battle-hour!
The splendor fell--his banners swell
Majestic forth to catch the shower;
Our own loved _blue_ receives anew
A rich immortal dower!
Adown the triple bars
Of its companion, spars
Of golden glory stream;
On seven-rayed circlet beam!
The glory falls--but not on walls
Of Sumter deemed _the post of duty_;
A brilliant sphere, it circles clear
The harbor in its beauty;
Holding in its embrace
The 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!
Rest _there_ and tell that _faith_
Shall never suffer scaith;
_Rest there_-and glow afar--
_Hope's ever-burning star!_
Charleston Mercury
Only One Killed.
By Julia L. Keyes, Montgomery, Ala.
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 see
The 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 true
For a time was unconcealed;
They saw the bullet had pierced him through
That his pain was brief--ah! very few
Die 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 Var
Whose life went out as a falling star
In 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 leaf
Now trodden and brown and sere!
But no, she must bear through coming life
Her burden of silent woe,
The aged mother and youthful wife
Must 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 wars
O'ershadow the loving--heart.
Field and Fireside.
Land of King Cotton.[1]
Air--Red, White, and Blue.
By J. Augustine Signaigo.
From the Memphis Appeal, December 18, 1861.
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 battle
Is 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 comer
Lies dead on the soil he would stain.
CHORUS.--Three cheers, etc.