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Edited By
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.
Press of Geo. C. Rand & Avery,
540 Broadway.
To
The Women of the South
I Inscribe This Volume
They have lost a cause, but they have made a triumph! They have shown themselves worthy of any manhood; and will leave a record which shall survive all the caprices of time. They have proved themselves worthy of the best womanhood, and, in their posterity, will leave no race which shall be unworthy of the cause which is lost, or of the mothers, sisters and wives, who have taught such noble lessons of virtuous effort, and womanly endurance.
W.G.S.
Several considerations have prompted the editor of this volume in the compilation of its pages. It constitutes a contribution to the national literature which is assumed to be not unworthy of it, and which is otherwise valuable as illustrating the degree of mental and art development which has been made, in a large section of the country, under circumstances greatly calculated to stimulate talent and provoke expression, through the higher utterances of passion and imagination. Though sectional in its character, and indicative of a temper and a feeling which were in conflict with nationality, yet, now that the States of the Union have been resolved into one nation, this collection is essentially as much the property of the whole as are the captured cannon which were employed against it during the progress of the late war. It belongs to the national literature, and will hereafter be regarded as constituting a proper part of it, just as legitimately to be recognized by the nation as are the rival ballads of the cavaliers and roundheads, by the English, in the great civil conflict of their country.
The emotional literature of a people is as necessary to the philosophical historian as the mere details of events in the progress of a nation. This is essential to the reputation of the Southern people, as illustrating their feelings, sentiments, ideas, and opinions--the motives which influenced their actions, and the objects which they had in contemplation, and which seemed to them to justify the struggle in which they were engaged. It shows with what spirit the popular mind regarded the course of events, whether favorable or adverse; and, in this aspect, it is even of more importance to the writer of history than any mere chronicle of facts. The mere facts in a history do not always, or often, indicate the true animus, of the action. But, in poetry and song, the emotional nature is apt to declare itself without reserve--speaking out with a passion which disdains subterfuge, and through media of imagination and fancy, which are not only without reserve, but which are too coercive in their own nature, too arbitrary in their influence, to acknowledge any restraints upon that expression, which glows or weeps with emotions that gush freely and freshly from the heart. With this persuasion, we can also forgive the muse who, in her fervor, is sometimes forgetful of her art.
And yet, it is believed that the numerous pieces of this volume will be found creditable to the genius and culture of the Southern people, and honorable, as in accordance with their convictions. They are derived from all the States of the late Southern Confederacy, and will be found truthfully to exhibit the sentiment and opinion prevailing more or less generally throughout the whole. The editor has had special advantages in making the compilation. Having a large correspondence in most of the Southern States, he has found no difficulty in procuring his material. Contributions have poured in upon him from all portions of the South; the original publications having been, in a large number of cases, subjected to the careful revision of the several authors. It is a matter of great regret with him that the limits of the present volume have not suffered him to do justice to, and find a place for, many of the pieces which fully deserve to be put on record. Some of the poems were quite too long for his purpose; a large number, delayed by the mails and other causes, were received too late for publication. Several collections, from Louisiana, North Carolina, and Texas, especially, are omitted for this reason. Many of these pieces are distinguished by fire, force, passion, and a free play of fancy. Briefly, his material would enable him to prepare another volume, similar to the present, which would not be unworthy of its companionship. He is authorized by his publisher to say that, in the event of the popular success of the present volume, he will cheerfully follow up its publication by a second, of like style, character, and dimensions.
The editor has seen with pleasure the volume of "Rebel Rhymes" edited by Mr. Moore, and of "South Songs," by Mr. De Leon. He has seen, besides, a single number of a periodical pamphlet called "The Southern Monthly," published at Memphis, Tenn. This has been supplied him by a contributor. He has seen no other publications of this nature, though he has heard of others, and has sought for them in vain. There may be others still forthcoming; for, in so large a field, with a population so greatly scattered as that of the South, it is a physical impossibility adequately to do justice to the whole by any one editor; and each of the sections must make its own contributions, in its own time, and according to its several opportunities. There will be room enough for all; and each, I doubt not, will possess its special claims to recognition and reward.
His own collections, made during the progress of the war, from the newspapers, chiefly, of South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia, were copious. Of these, many have been omitted from this collection, which, he trusts, will some day find another medium of publication. He has been able to ascertain the authorship, in many cases, of these writings; but must regret still that so many others, under a too fastidious delicacy, deny that their names should be made known. It is to be hoped that they will hereafter be supplied. To the numerous ladies who have so frankly and generously contributed to this collection, by sending originals and making copies, he begs to offer his most grateful acknowledgments.
A large proportion of the pieces omitted are of elegiac character. Of this class, he could find a place for such pieces only as were dedicated to the most distinguished of the persons falling in battle, or such as are marked by the higher characteristics of poetry--freshness, thought, and imagination. But many of the omitted pieces are quite worthy of preservation. Much space has not been given to that class of songs, camp catches, or marching ballads, which are so numerous in the "Rebel Rhymes" of Mr. Moore. The songs which are most popular are rarely such as may claim poetical rank. They depend upon lively music and certain spirit-stirring catchwords, and are rarely worked up with much regard to art or even, propriety. Still, many of these should have found a place in this volume, had adequate space been allowed the editor. It is his desire, as well as that of the publisher, to collect and bind together these fugitives in yet another publication. He will preserve the manuscripts and copies of all unpublished pieces, with the view to this object--keeping them always subject to the wishes of their several writers.
At the close, he must express the hope that these poems will be recognized, not only as highly creditable to the Southern mind, but as truly illustrative, if not justificatory of, that sentiment and opinion with which they have been written; which sentiment and opinion have sustained their people through a war unexampled in its horrors in modern times, and which has fully tested their powers of endurance, as well as their ability in creating their own resources, under all reverses, and amidst every form of privation.
W.G.S.
Brooklyn, September 8, 1866.
Written during the meeting of the First Southern Congress, at Montgomery, February, 1861.
Hath not the morning dawned with added light?
And shall not evening--call another star
Out of the infinite regions of the night,
To mark this day in Heaven? At last, we are
A nation among nations; and the world
Shall soon behold in many a distant port
Another flag unfurled!
Now, come what may, whose favor need we court?
And, under God, whose thunder need we fear?
Thank Him who placed us here
Beneath so kind a sky--the very sun
Takes part with us; and on our errands run
All breezes of the ocean; dew and rain
Do noiseless battle for us; and the Year,
And all the gentle daughters in her train,
March in our ranks, and in our service wield
Long spears of golden grain!
A yellow blossom as her fairy shield,
June fling's her azure banner to the wind,
While in the order of their birth
Her sisters pass; and many an ample field
Grows white beneath their steps, till now, behold
Its endless sheets unfold
THE SNOW OF SOUTHERN SUMMERS! Let the earth
Rejoice! beneath those fleeces soft and warm
Our happy land shall sleep
In a repose as deep
As if we lay intrenched behind
Whole leagues of Russian ice and Arctic storm!
And what if, mad with wrongs themselves have wrought,
In their own treachery caught,
By their own fears made bold,
And leagued with him of old,
Who long since, in the limits of the North,
Set up his evil throne, and warred with God--
What if, both mad and blinded in their rage,
Our foes should fling us down their mortal gage,
And with a hostile step profane our sod!
We shall not shrink, my brothers, but go forth
To meet them, marshalled by the Lord of Hosts,
And overshadowed by the mighty ghosts
Of Moultrie and of Eutaw--who shall foil
Auxiliars such as these? Nor these alone,
But every stock and stone
Shall help us; but the very soil,
And all the generous wealth it gives to toil,
And all for which we love our noble land,
Shall fight beside, and through us, sea and strand,
The heart of woman, and her hand,
Tree, fruit, and flower, and every influence,
Gentle, or grave, or grand;
The winds in our defence
Shall seem to blow; to us the hills shall lend
Their firmness and their calm;
And in our stiffened sinews we shall blend
The strength of pine and palm!
Nor would we shun the battle-ground,
Though weak as we are strong;
Call up the clashing elements around,
And test the right and wrong!
On one side, creeds that dare to teach
What Christ and Paul refrained to preach;
Codes built upon a broken pledge,
And charity that whets a poniard's edge;
Fair schemes that leave the neighboring poor
To starve and shiver at the schemer's door,
While in the world's most liberal ranks enrolled,
He turns some vast philanthropy to gold;
Religion taking every mortal form
But that a pure and Christian faith makes warm,
Where not to vile fanatic passion urged,
Or not in vague philosophies submerged,
Repulsive with all Pharisaic leaven,
And making laws to stay the laws of Heaven!
And on the other, scorn of sordid gain,
Unblemished honor, truth without a stain,
Faith, justice, reverence, charitable wealth,
And, for the poor and humble, laws which give,
Not the mean right to buy the right to live,
But life, and home, and health!
To doubt the end were want of trust in God,
Who, if he has decreed
That we must pass a redder sea
Than that which rang to Miriam's holy glee,
Will surely raise at need
A Moses with his rod!
But let our fears-if fears we have--be still,
And turn us to the future! Could we climb
Some mighty Alp, and view the coming time,
The rapturous sight would fill
Our eyes with happy tears!
Not only for the glories which the years
Shall bring us; not for lands from sea to sea,
And wealth, and power, and peace, though these shall be;
But for the distant peoples we shall bless,
And the hushed murmurs of a world's distress:
For, to give labor to the poor,
The whole sad planet o'er,
And save from want and crime the humblest door,
Is one among--the many ends for which
God makes us great and rich!
The hour perchance is not yet wholly ripe
When all shall own it, but the type
Whereby we shall be known in every land
Is that vast gulf which laves our Southern strand,
And through the cold, untempered ocean pours
Its genial streams, that far-off Arctic shores
May sometimes catch upon the softened breeze
Strange tropic warmth and hints of summer seas.
God save the South!
God save the South!
Her altars and firesides--
God save the South!
Now that the war is nigh--
Now that we arm to die--
Chanting--our battle-cry,
Freedom or Death!
God be our shield!
At home or a-field,
Stretch Thine arm over us,
Strengthen and save!
What though they're five to one,
Forward each sire and son,
Strike till the war is done,
Strike to the grave.
God make the right
Stronger than might!
Millions would trample us
Down in their pride.
Lay, thou, their legions low;
Roll back the ruthless foe;
Let the proud spoiler know
God's on our side!
Hark! honor's call,
Summoning all--
Summoning all of us
Up to the strife.
Sons of the South, awake!
Strike till the brand shall break!
Strike for dear honor's sake,
Freedom and Life!
Rebels before
Were our fathers of yore;
Rebel, the glorious name
Washington bore,
Why, then, be ours the same
Title he snatched from shame;
Making it first in fame,
Odious no more.
War to the hilt!
Theirs be the guilt,
Who fetter the freeman
To ransom the slave.
Up, then, and undismayed,
Sheathe not the battle-blade?
Till the last foe is laid
Low in the grave.
God save the South!
God save the South!
Dry the dim eyes that now
Follow our path.
Still let the light feet rove
Safe through the orange grove;
Still keep the land we love
Safe from all wrath.
God save the South!
God save the South!
Her altars and firesides--
God save the South!
For the rude war is nigh,
And we must win or die;
Chanting our battle-cry
Freedom or Death!
You can never win them back,
never! never!
Though they perish on the track
of your endeavor;
Though their corses strew the earth
That smiled upon their birth,
And blood pollutes each hearthstone
forever!
They have risen, to a man
stern and fearless;
Of your curses and your ban
they are careless.
Every hand is on its knife;
Every gun is primed for strife;
Every palm contains a life
high and peerless!
You have no such blood as theirs
for the shedding,
In the veins of Cavaliers
was its heading.
You have no such stately men
In your abolition den,
To march through foe and fen,
nothing dreading.
They may fall before the fire
of your legions,
Paid in gold for murd'rous hire--
bought allegiance!
But for every drop you shed
You shall leave a mound of dead;
And the vultures shall be fed
in our regions.
But the battle to the strong
is not given,
While the Judge of right and wrong
sits in heaven!
And the God of David still
Guides each pebble by His will;
There are giants yet to kill--
wrong's unshriven.
In the name of God! Amen!
Stand for our Southern rights;
On our side, Southern men,
The God of battles fights!
Fling the invaders far--
Hurl back their work of woe--
The voice is the voice of a brother,
But the hands are the hands of a foe.
They come with a trampling army,
Invading our native sod--
Stand, Southrons! fight and conquer,
In the name of the mighty God!
They are singing our song of triumph,[1]
Which proclaimed us proud and free--
While breaking away the heartstrings
Of our nation's harmony.
Sadly it floateth from us,
Sighing o'er land and wave;
Till, mute on the lips of the poet,
It sleeps in his Southern grave.
Spirit and song departed!
Minstrel and minstrelsy!
We mourn ye, heavy hearted,--
But we will--we will be free!
They are waving our flag above us,
With the despot's tyrant will;
With our blood they have stained its colors,
And they call it holy still.
With tearful eyes, but steady hand,
We'll tear its stripes apart,
And fling them, like broken fetters,
That may not bind the heart.
But we'll save our stars of glory,
In the might of the sacred sign
Of Him who has fixed forever
One "Southern Cross" to shine.
Stand, Southrons! fight and conquer!
Solemn, and strong, and sure!
The fight shall not be longer
Than God shall bid endure.
By the life that but yesterday
Waked with the infant's breath!
By the feet which, ere morning, may
Tread to the soldier's death!
By the blood which cries to heaven--
Crimson upon our sod!
Stand, Southrons! fight and conquer,
In the name of the mighty God!
[1] The Star Spangled Banner. Written by F. S. Key, of Baltimore; all whose descendants are Confederates.
The deed is done! the die is cast;
The glorious Rubicon is passed:
Hail, Carolina! free at last!
Strong in the right, I see her stand
Where ocean laves the shelving sand;
Her own Palmetto decks the strand.
She turns aloft her flashing eye;
Radiant, her lonely star[1] on high
Shines clear amidst the darkening sky.
Silent, along those azure deeps
Its course her silver crescent keeps,
And in soft light the landscape steeps.
Fling forth her banner to the gale!
Let all the hosts of earth assail,--
Their fury and their force shall fail.
Echoes the wide resounding shore,
With voice above th' Atlantic roar,
Her sons proclaim her free once more!
Oh, land of heroes! Spartan State!
In numbers few, in daring great,
Thus to affront the frowns of fate!
And while mad triumph rules the hour,
And thickening clouds of menace lower,
Bear back the tide of tyrant power.
With steadfast courage, faltering never,
Sternly resolved, her bonds we sever:
Hail, Carolina! free forever!
[1] The flag showed a star within a crescent or new moon.
Another star arisen; another flag unfurled;
Another name inscribed among the nations of the world;
Another mighty struggle 'gainst a tyrant's fell decree,
And again a burdened people have uprisen, and are free.
The spirit of the fathers in the children liveth yet;
Liveth still the olden blood which dimmed the foreign bayonet;
And the fathers fought for freedom, and the sons for freedom fight;
Their God was with the fathers--and is still the God of right!
Behold! the skies are darkened! A gloomy cloud hath lowered!
Shall it break before the sun of peace, or spread in rage impowered?
Shall we have the smile of friendship, or shall it be the blow?
Shall it be the right hand to the friend, or the red hand to the foe?
In peacefulness we wish to live, but not in slavish fear;
In peacefulness we dare not die, dishonored on our bier.
To our allies of the Northern land we offer heart and hand,
But if they scorn our friendship--then the banner and the brand!
Honor to the new-born nation! and honor to the brave!
A country freed from thraldom, or a soldier's honored grave.
Every step shall be contested; every rivulet run red,
And the invader, should he conquer, find the conquered in the dead.
But victory shall follow where the sons of freedom go,
And the signal for the onset be the death-knell of the foe;
And hallowed shall the spot be where he was so bravely met,
And the star which yonder rises, rises never more to set.
Then welcome be it, if indeed it be
The Irrepressible Conflict! Let it come;
There will be mitigation of the doom,
If, battling to the last, our sires shall see
Their sons contending for the homes made free
In ancient conflict with the foreign foe!
If those who call us brethren strike the blow,
No common conflict shall the invader know!
War to the knife, and to the last, until
The sacred land we keep shall overflow
With blood as sacred--valley, wave, and hill,
Or the last enemy finds his bloody grave!
Aye, welcome to your graves--or ours! The brave
May perish, but ye shall not bind one slave.
In the galaxy of nations,
A nation's flag's unfurled,
Transcending in its martial pride
The nations of the world.
Though born of war, baptized in blood,
Yet mighty from the time,
Like fabled phoenix, forth she stood--
Dismembered, yet sublime.
And braver heart, and bolder hand,
Ne'er formed a fabric fair
As Southern wisdom can command,
And Southern valor rear.
Though kingdoms scorn to own her sway,
Or recognize her birth,
The land blood-bought for Liberty
Will reign supreme on earth.
Clime of the Sun! Home of the Brave!
Thy sons are bold and free,
And pour life's crimson tide to save
Their birthright, Liberty!
Their fertile fields and sunny plains
That yield the wealth alone,
That's coveted for greedy gains
By despots-and a throne!
Proud country! battling, bleeding, torn,
Thy altars desolate;
Thy lovely dark-eyed daughters mourn
At war's relentless fate;
And widow's prayers, and orphan's tears,
Her homes will consecrate,
While more than brass or marble rears
The trophy of her great.
Oh! land that boasts each gallant name
Of JACKSON, JOHNSON, LEE,
And hosts of valiant sons, whose fame
Extends beyond the sea;
Far rather let thy plains become,
From gulf to mountain cave,
One honored sepulchre and tomb,
Than we the tyrant's slave!
Fair, favored land! thou mayst be free,
Redeemed by blood and war;
Through agony and gloom we see
Thy hope--a glimmering star;
Thy banner, too, may proudly float,
A herald on the seas--
Thy deeds of daring worlds remote
Will emulate and praise!
But who can paint the impulse pure,
That thrills and nerves thy brave
To deeds of valor, that secure
The rights their fathers gave?
Oh! grieve not, hearts; her matchless stain,
Crowned with the warrior's wreath,
From beds of fame their proud refrain
Was "Liberty or Death!"
Is there, then, no hope for the nations?
Must the record of Time be the same?
And shall History, in all her narrations,
Still close each last chapter in shame?
Shall the valor which grew to be glorious,
Prove the shame, as the pride of a race:
And a people, for ages victorious,
Through the arts of the chapman, grow base?
Greek, Hebrew, Assyrian, and Roman,
Each strides o'er the scene and departs!
How valiant their deeds 'gainst the foeman,
How wondrous their virtues and arts!
Rude valor, at first, when beginning,
The nation through blood took its name;
Then the wisdom, which hourly winning
New heights in its march, rose to Fame!
How noble the tale for long ages,
Blending Beauty with courage and might!
What Heroes, what Poets, and Sages,
Made eminent stars for each height!
While their people, with reverence ample.
Brought tribute of praise to the Great,
Whose wisdom and virtuous example,
Made virtue the pride of the State!
Ours, too, was as noble a dawning,
With hopes of the Future as high:
Great men, each a star of the morning,
Taught us bravely to live and to die!
We fought the long fight with our foeman,
And through trial--well-borne--won a name,
Not less glorious than Grecian or Roman,
And worthy as lasting a fame!
Shut the Book! We must open another!
O Southron! if taught by the Past,
Beware, when thou choosest a brother,
With what ally thy fortunes are cast!
Beware of all foreign alliance,
Of their pleadings and pleasings beware,
Better meet the old snake with defiance,
Than find in his charming a snare!
Thus, the grand fabric of a thousand years--
Rear'd with such art and wisdom--by a race
Of giant sires, in virtue all compact,
Self-sacrificing; having grand ideals
Of public strength, and peoples capable
Of great conceptions for the common good,
And of enduring liberties, kept strong
Through purity;--tumbles and falls apart,
Lacking cement in virtue; and assail'd
Within, without, by greed of avarice,
And vain ambition for supremacy.
So fell the old Republics--Gentile and Jew,
Roman and Greek--such evermore the record;
Mix'd glory and shame, still lapsing into greed,
From conquest and from triumph, into fall!
The glory that we see exchanged for guilt
Might yet be glory. There were pride enough,
And emulous ambition to achieve,--
Both generous powers, when coupled with endowment,
To do the work of States--and there were courage
And sense of public need, and public welfare,--
And duty--in a brave but scattered few,
Throughout the States--had these been credited
To combat 'gainst the popular appetites.
But these were scorn'd and set aside for naught,
As lacking favor with the popular lusts!
They found reward in exile or in death!
And he alone who could debase his spirit,
And file his mind down to the basest nature
Grew capp'd with rule!--
So, with the lapse
From virtue, the great nation forfeits all
The pride with the security--the liberty,
With that prime modesty which keeps the heart
Upright, in meek subjection, to the doubts
That wait upon Humanity, and teach
Humility, as best check and guaranty,
Against the wolfish greed of appetite!
Worst of all signs, assuring coming doom,
When peoples loathe to listen to the praise
Of their great men; and, jealous of just claims,
Eagerly set upon them to revile,
And banish from their councils! Worse than all
When the great man, succumbing to the mass,
Yields up his mind as a low instrument
To vulgar fingers, to be played upon:--
Yields to the vulgar lure, the cunning bribe
Of place or profit, and makes sale of States
To Party!
Thus and then are States subdued--
'Till one vast central tyranny upstarts,
With front of glittering brass, but legs of clay;
Insolent, reckless of account as right,--
While lust grows license, and tears off the robes
From justice; and makes right a thing of mock;
And puts a foolscap on the head of law,
And plucks the baton of authority
From his right hand, and breaks it o'er his head.
So rages still the irresponsible power,
Using the madden'd populace as hounds,
To hunt down freedom where she seeks retreat.
The ancient history becomes the new--
The ages move in circles, and the snake
Ends ever with his tail in his own mouth.
Thus still in all the past!--and man the same
In all the ages--a poor thing of passion,
Hot greed, and miserable vanity,
And all infirmities of lust and error,
Makes of himself the wretched instrument
To murder his own hope.
So empires fall,--
Past, present, and to come!--
There is no hope
For nations or peoples, once they lapse from virtue
And fail in modest sense of what they are--
Creatures of weakness, whose security
Lies in meek resting on the law of God,
And in that wise humility which pleads
Ever for his guardian watch and Government,
Though men may bear the open signs of rule.
Humility is safety! could men learn
The law, "ne sutor ultra crepidam,"
And the sagacious cobbler, at his last,
Content himself with paring leather down
To heel and instep, nicely fitting parts,
In proper adaptation, to the foot,
We might have safety.
Rightly to conceive
What's right, and limit the o'erreaching will
To this one measure only, is the whole
Of that grand rule, and wise necessity,
Which only gives us safety.
Where a State,
Or blended States, or peoples, pass the bounds
Set for their progress, they must topple and fall
Into that gulf of ruin which has swallowed
All ancient Empires, States, Republics; all
Perishing, in like manner, from the selfsame cause!
The terrible conjunction of the event,
Close with the provocation, stands apart,
A social beacon in all histories;
And yet we take no heed, but still rush on,
Under mixed sway of greed and vanity,
And like the silly boy with his card-castle,
Precipitate to ruin as we build.
'Twas a goodly boon that our fathers gave,
And fits but ill to be held by the slave;
And sad were the thought, if one of our band
Should give up the hope of so fair a land.
But the hour has come, and the times that tried
The souls of men in our days of pride,
Return once more, and now for the brave,
To merit the boon which our fathers gave.
And if there be one base spirit who stands
Now, in our peril, with folded hands,
Let his grave at once in the soil be wrought,
With the sword with which his old father fought.
An oath sublime should the freeman take,
Still braving the fight and the felon stake,--
The oath that his sires brought over the sea,
When they pledged their swords to Liberty!
'Twas a goodly oath, and In Heaven's own sight,
They battled and bled in behalf of the right;
'Twas hallowed by God with the holiest sign,
And seal'd with the blood of your sires and mine.
We cannot forget, and we dare not forego,
The holy duty to them that we owe,
The duty that pledges the soul of the son
To keep the freedom his sire hath won.
To suffer no proud transgressor to spoil
One right of our homes, or one foot of our soil,
One privilege pluck from our keeping, or dare
Usurp one blessing 'tis fit that we share!
Art ready for this, dear brother, who still
Keep'st Washington's bones upon Vernon's hill?
Art ready for this, dear brother, whose ear,
Should ever the voices of Mecklenberg hear?
Thou art ready, I know, brother nearest my heart,
Son of Eutaw and Ashley, to do thy part;
The sword and the rifle are bright in thy hands,
And waits but the word for the flashing of brands!
And thou, by Savannah's broad valleys,--and thou
Where the Black Warrior murmurs in echoes the vow;
And thou, youngest son of our sires, who roves
Where Apala-chicola[1] glides through her groves.
Nor shall Tennessee pause, when like voice from the steep,
The great South shall summon her sons from their sleep;
Nor Kentucky be slow, when our trumpet shall call,
To tear down the rifle that hangs on her wall!
Oh, sound, to awaken the dead from their graves,
The will that would thrust us from place for our slaves,
That, by fraud which lacks courage, and plea that lacks truth,
Would rob us of right without reason or ruth.
Dost thou hearken, brave Creole, as fearless as strong,
Nor rouse thee to combat the infamous wrong?
Ye hear it, I know, in the depth of your souls,
Valiant race, through whose valley the great river rolls.
At last ye are wakened, all rising at length,
In the passion of pride, in the fulness of strength;
And now let the struggle begin which shall see,
If the son, like the sire, is fit to be free.
We are sworn to the State, from our fathers that came,
To welcome the ruin, but never the shame;
To yield not a foot of our soil, nor a right,
While the soul and the sword are still fit for the fight.
Then, brothers, your hands and your hearts, while we draw
The bright sword of right, on the charter of law;--
Here the record was writ by our fathers, and here,
To keep, with the sword, that old record, we swear.
Let those who defile and deface it, be sure,
No longer their wrong or their fraud we endure;
We will scatter in scorn every link of the chain,
With which they would fetter our free souls in vain.
How goodly and bright were its links at the first!
How loathly and foul, in their usage accurst!
We had worn it in pride while it honor'd the brave,
But we rend it, when only grown fit for the slave.
[1] The reader will place the accent on the ante-penultimate, which affords not only the most musical, but the correct pronunciation.
"Liberty is always won where there exists the unconquerable will to be free."
Born free, thus we resolve to live:
By Heaven we will be free!
By all the stars which burn on high--
By the green earth--the mighty sea--
By God's unshaken majesty,
We will be free or die!
Then let the drums all roll!
Let all the trumpets blow!
Mind, heart, and soul,
We spurn control
Attempted by a foe!
Born free, thus we resolve to live:
By Heaven we will be free!
And, vainly now the Northmen try
To beat us down--in arms we stand
To strike for this our native land!
We will be free or die!
Then let the drums all roll! etc., etc.
Born free, we thus resolve to live:
By Heaven we will be free!
Our wives and children look on high,
Pray God to smile upon the right!
And bid us in the deadly fight
As freemen live or die!
Then let the drums all roll! etc., etc.
Born free, thus we resolve to live:
By Heaven we will be free!
And ere we cease this battle-cry,
Be all our blood, our kindred's spilt,
On bayonet or sabre hilt!
We will be free or die!
Then let the drums all roll! etc., etc.
Born free, thus we resolve to live:
By Heaven we will be free!
Defiant let the banners fly,
Shake out their glories to the air,
And, kneeling, brothers, let us swear
We will be free or die!
Then let the drums all roll! etc., etc.
Born free, thus we resolve to live:
By Heaven we will be free!
And to this oath the dead reply--
Our valiant fathers' sacred ghosts--
These with us, and the God of hosts,
We will be free or die!
Then let the drums all roll! etc., etc.
Arm yourselves and be valiant men, and see that ye be in readiness against the morning, that ye may fight with these nations that are assembled against us, to destroy us and our sanctuary. For it is better for us to die in battle than to behold the calamities of our people and our sanctuary.--Maccabees I.
Brothers! the thunder-cloud is black,
And the wail of the South wings forth;
Will ye cringe to the hot tornado's rack,
And the vampires of the North?
Strike! ye can win a martyr's goal,
Strike! with a ruthless hand--
Strike! with the vengeance of the soul,
For your bright, beleaguered land!
To arms! to arms! for the South needs help,
And a craven is he who flees--
For ye have the sword of the Lion's Whelp,[1]
And the God of the Maccabees!
Arise! though the stars have a rugged glare,
And the moon has a wrath-blurred crown--
Brothers! a blessing is ambushed there
In the cliffs of the Father's frown:
Arise! ye are worthy the wondrous light
Which the Sun of Justice gives--
In the caves and sepulchres of night
Jehovah the Lord King lives!
To arms! to arms! for the South needs help,
And a craven is he who flees--
For ye have the sword of the Lion's Whelp,
And the God of the Maccabees!
Think of the dead by the Tennessee,
In their frozen shrouds of gore--
Think of the mothers who shall see
Those darling eyes no more!
But better are they in a hero grave
Than the serfs of time and breath,
For they are the children of the brave,
And the cherubim of death!
To arms! to arms! for the South needs help,
And a craven is he who flees--
For ye have the sword of the Lion's Whelp,
And the God of the Maccabees!
Better the charnels of the West,
And a hecatomb of lives,
Than the foul invader as a guest
'Mid your sisters and your wives--
But a spirit lurketh in every maid,
Though, brothers, ye should quail,
To sharpen a Judith's lurid blade,
And the livid spike of Jael!
To arms! to arms! for the South needs help,
And a craven is he who flees--
For ye have the sword of the Lion's Whelp,
And the God of the Maccabees!
Brothers! I see you tramping by,
With the gladiator gaze,
And your shout is the Macedonian cry
Of the old, heroic days!
March on! with trumpet and with drum,
With rifle, pike, and dart,
And die--if even death must come--
Upon your country's heart!
To arms! to arms! for the South needs help,
And a craven is he who flees--
For ye have the sword of the Lion's Whelp,
And the God of the Maccabees!
Brothers! the thunder-cloud is black,
And the wail of the South wings forth;
Will ye cringe to the hot tornado's rack,
And the vampires of the North?
Strike! ye can win a martyr's goal,
Strike! with a ruthless hand--
Strike! with the vengeance of the soul
For your bright, beleaguered land!
To arms! to arms! for the South needs help,
And a craven is he who flees--
For ye have the sword of the Lion's Whelp,
And the God of the Maccabees!
[1] The surname of the great Maccabeus.
Democracy hath done its work of ill,
And, seeming freemen, never to be free,
While the poor people shout in vanity,
The Demagogue triumphs o'er the popular will.
How swift the abasement follows! But few years,
And we stood eminent. Great men were ours,
Of virtue stern, and armed with mightiest powers!
How have we sunk below our proper spheres!
No Heroes, Virtues, Men! But in their place,
The nimble marmozet and magpie men;
Creatures that only mock and mimic, when
They run astride the shoulders of the race;
Democracy, in vanity elate,
Clothing but sycophants in robes of state.
Ye spirits of the glorious dead!
Ye watchers in the sky!
Who sought the patriot's crimson bed,
With holy trust and high--
Come, lend your inspiration now,
Come, fire each Southern son,
Who nobly fights for freemen's rights,
And shouts for sixty-one.
Come, teach them how, on hill on glade,
Quick leaping from your side,
The lightning flash of sabres made
A red and flowing tide--
How well ye fought, how bravely fell,
Beneath our burning sun;
And let the lyre, in strains of fire,
So speak of sixty-one.
There's many a grave in all the land,
And many a crucifix,
Which tells how that heroic band
Stood firm in seventy-six--
Ye heroes of the deathless past,
Your glorious race is run,
But from your dust springs freemen's trust,
And blows for sixty-one.
We build our altars where you lie,
On many a verdant sod,
With sabres pointing to the sky,
And sanctified of God;
The smoke shall rise from every pile,
Till freedom's cause is won,
And every mouth throughout the South,
Shall shout for sixty-one!
A voice is heard in Ramah!
High sounds are on the gale!
Notes to wake buried patriots!
Notes to strike traitors pale!
Wild notes of outraged feeling
Cry aloud and spare him not!
'Tis Virginia's strong appealing,
And she calls to Winfield Scott!
Oh! chief among ten thousand!
Thou whom I loved so well,
Star that has set, as never yet
Since son of morning fell!
I call not in reviling,
Nor to speak thee what thou art;
I leave thee to thy death-bed,
And I leave thee to thy heart!
But by every mortal hope,
And by every mortal fear;
By all that man deems sacred,
And that woman holds most dear;
Yea! by thy mother's honor,
And by thy father's grave,
By hell beneath, and heaven above,
Give back the sword I gave!
Not since God's sword was planted
To guard life's heavenly tree,
Has ever blade been granted,
Like that bestowed on thee!
To pierce me with the steel I gave
To guard mine honor's shrine,
Not since Iscariot lived and died,
Was treason like to thine!
Give back the sword! and sever
Our strong and mighty tie!
We part, and part forever,
To conquer or to die!
In sorrow, not in anger,
I speak the word, "We part!"
For I leave thee to thy death-bed,
And I leave thee to thy heart!
Richmond Whig.
Nay, keep the sword which once we gave,
A token of our trust in thee;
The steel is true, the blade is keen--
False as thou art it cannot be.
We hailed thee as our glorious chief,
With laurel-wreaths we bound thy brow;
Thy name then thrilled from tongue to tongue:
In whispers hushed we breathe it now.
Yes, keep it till thy dying day;
Momentous ever let it be,
Of a great treasure once possessed--
A people's love now lost to thee.
Thy mother will not bow her head;
She bares her bosom to thee now;
But may the bright steel fail to wound--
It is more merciful than thou.
And ere thou strik'st the fatal blow,
Thousands of sons of this fair land
Will rise, and, in their anger just,
Will stay the rash act of thy hand.
And when in terror thou shalt hear
Thy murderous deeds of vengeance cry
And feel the weight of thy great crime,
Then fall upon thy sword and die.
Those aged locks I'll not reproach,
Although upon a traitor's brow;
We've looked with reverence on them once,
We'll try and not revile them now.
But her true sons and daughters pray,
That ere thy day of reckoning be,
Thy ingrate heart may feel the pain
To know thy mother once more free.
Who talks of coercion? who dares to deny
A resolute people the right to be free?
Let him blot out forever one star from the sky,
Or curb with his fetter the wave of the sea!
Who prates of coercion? Can love be restored
To bosoms where only resentment may dwell?
Can peace upon earth be proclaimed by the sword,
Or good-will among men be established by shell?
Shame! shame!--that the statesman and trickster, forsooth,
Should have for a crisis no other recourse,
Beneath the fair day-spring of light and of truth,
Than the old brutum fulmen of tyranny--force!
From the holes where fraud, falsehood, and hate slink away--
From the crypt in which error lies buried in chains--
This foul apparition stalks forth to the day,
And would ravage the land which his presence profanes.
Could you conquer us, men of the North--could you bring
Desolation and death on our homes as a flood--
Can you hope the pure lily, affection, will spring
From ashes all reeking and sodden with blood?
Could you brand us as villains and serfs, know ye not
What fierce, sullen hatred lurks under the scar?
How loyal to Hapsburg is Venice, I wot!
How dearly the Pole loves his father, the Czar!
But 'twere well to remember this land of the sun
Is a nutrix leonum, and suckles a race
Strong-armed, lion-hearted, and banded as one,
Who brook not oppression and know not disgrace.
And well may the schemers in office beware
The swift retribution that waits upon crime,
When the lion, RESISTANCE, shall leap from his lair,
With a fury that renders his vengeance sublime.
Once, men of the North, we were brothers, and still,
Though brothers no more, we would gladly be friends;
Nor join in a conflict accursed, that must fill
With ruin, the country on which it descends.
But, if smitten with blindness, and mad with the rage
The gods gave to all whom they wished to destroy,
You would act a new Iliad, to darken the age
With horrors beyond what is told us of Troy--
If, deaf as the adder itself to the cries,
When wisdom, humanity, justice implore,
You would have our proud eagle to feed on the eyes
Of those who have taught him so grandly to soar--
If there be to your malice no limit imposed,
And you purpose hereafter to rule with the rod
The men upon whom you already have closed
Our goodly domain and the temples of God:
To the breeze then your banner dishonored unfold,
And, at once, let the tocsin be sounded afar;
We greet you, as greeted the Swiss, Charles the Bold--
With a farewell to peace and a welcome to war!
For the courage that clings to our soil, ever bright,
Shall catch inspiration from turf and from tide;
Our sons unappalled shall go forth to the fight,
With the smile of the fair, the pure kiss of the bride;
And the bugle its echoes shall send through the past,
In the trenches of Yorktown to waken the slain;
While the sod of King's Mountain shall heave at the blast,
And give up its heroes to glory again.
Ho! woodsmen of the mountain-side!
Ho! dwellers in the vales!
Ho! ye who by the chafing tide
Have roughened in the gales!
Leave barn and byre, leave kin and cot,
Lay by the bloodless spade;
Let desk, and case, and counter rot,
And burn your books of trade.
The despot roves your fairest lands;
And till he flies or fears,
Your fields must grow but armed bands,
Your sheaves be sheaves of spears!
Give up to mildew and to rust
The useless tools of gain;
And feed your country's sacred dust
With floods of crimson rain!
Come, with the weapons at your call--
With musket, pike, or knife;
He wields the deadliest blade of all
Who lightest holds his life.
The arm that drives its unbought blows
With all a patriot's scorn,
Might brain a tyrant with a rose,
Or stab him with a thorn.
Does any falter? let him turn
To some brave maiden's eyes,
And catch the holy fires that burn
In those sublunar skies.
Oh! could you like your women feel,
And in their spirit march,
A day might see your lines of steel
Beneath the victor's arch.
What hope, O God! would not grow warm
When thoughts like these give cheer?
The lily calmly braves the storm,
And shall the palm-tree fear?
No! rather let its branches court
The rack that sweeps the plain;
And from the lily's regal port
Learn how to breast the strain!
Ho! woodsmen of the mountain-side!
Ho! dwellers in the vales!
Ho! ye who by the roaring tide
Have roughened in the gales!
Come! flocking gayly to the fight
From forest, hill, and lake;
We battle for our country's right,
And for the lily's sake!
'Twas not the private insult galled him most,
But public outrage of his country's flag,
To which his patriotic heart had pledged
Its faith as to a bride. The bold, proud chief,
Th' avenging host, and the swift-coming death
Appalled him not. Nor life with all its charms,
Nor home, nor wife, nor children could weigh down
The fierce, heroic instincts to destroy
The insolent invader. Ellsworth fell,
And Jackson perished 'mid the pack of wolves,
Befriended only by his own great heart
And God approving. More than Roman soul!
O type of our impetuous chivalry!
May this young nation ever boast her sons
A vast, and inconceivable multitude,
Standing like thee in her extremest van,
Self-poised and ready, in defence of rights
Or in revenge of wrongs, to dare and die!
Revealed, as in a lightning flash,
A hero stood!
The invading foe, the trumpet's crash,
Set up his blood.
High o'er the sacred pile that bends
Those forms above,
Thy star, O Freedom! brightly blends
Its rays with love.
The banner of a mighty race,
Serenely there,
Unfurls the genius of the place,
In haunted air.
A vow is registered in Heaven!
Patriot! 'tis thine!
To guard those matchless colors, given
By hands divine.
Jackson! thy spirit may not hear
Our wail ascend;
A nation gathers round thy bier,
And mourns its friend.
The example is thy monument,
And organ tones
Thy name resound, with glory blent,
Prouder than thrones!
And they whose loss hath been our gain,
A people's cares
Shall win their wounded hearts from pain,
And wipe their tears.
When time shall set the captives free,
Now scathed by wrath,
Heirs of his immortality,
Bright be their path.
Doubtless to some, with length of ears,
To gratify an ape's desire,
The blessed Union still endears;--
The stripes, if not the stars, be theirs!
"Greek faith" they gave us eighty years,
And then--"Greek fire!"
But, better all their fires of scath
Than one hour's trust in Yankee faith!
The holy fire that nerved the Greek
To make his stand at Marathon,
Until the last red foeman's shriek
Proclaimed that freedom's fight was won,
Still lives unquenched--unquenchable:
Through every age its fires will burn--
Lives in the hermit's lonely cell,
And springs from every storied urn.
The hearthstone embers hold the spark
Where fell oppression's foot hath trod;
Through superstition's shadow dark
It flashes to the living God!
From Moscow's ashes springs the Russ;
In Warsaw, Poland lives again:
Schamyl, on frosty Caucasus,
Strikes liberty's electric chain!
Tell's freedom-beacon lights the Swiss;
Vainly the invader ever strives;
He finds Sic Semper Tyrannis
In San Jacinto's bowie-knives!
Than these--than all--a holier fire
Now burns thy soul, Virginia's son!
Strike then for wife, babe, gray-haired sire,
Strike for the grave of Washington!
The Northern rabble arms for greed;
The hireling parson goads the train--
In that foul crop from, bigot seed,
Old "Praise God Barebones" howls again!
We welcome them to "Southern lands,"
We welcome them to "Southern slaves,"
We welcome them "with bloody hands
To hospitable Southern graves!"
Float aloft, thou stainless banner!
Azure cross and field of light;
Be thy brilliant stars the symbol
Of the pure and true and right.
Shelter freedom's holy cause--
Liberty and sacred laws;
Guard the youngest of the nations--
Keep her virgin honor bright.
From Virginia's storied border,
Down to Tampa's furthest shore--
From the blue Atlantic's clashings
To the Rio Grande's roar--
Over many a crimson plain,
Where our martyred ones lie slain--
Fling abroad thy blessed shelter,
Stream and mount and valley o'er.
In thy cross of heavenly azure
Has our faith its emblem high;
In thy field of white, the hallow'd
Truth for which we'll dare and die;
In thy red, the patriot blood--
Ah! the consecrated flood.
Lift thyself, resistless banner!
Ever fill our Southern sky!
Flash with living, lightning motion
In the sight of all the brave!
Tell the price at which we purchased
Room and right for thee to wave
Freely in our God's free air,
Pure and proud and stainless fair,
Banner of the youngest nation--
Banner we would die to save!
Strike Thou for us! King of armies!
Grant us room in Thy broad world!
Loosen all the despot's fetters,
Back be all his legions hurled!
Give us peace and liberty,
Let the land we love be free--
Then, oh! bright and stainless banner!
Never shall thy folds be furled!
The moral of a party--if it be
That healthy States need parties, lies in this,
That we consider well what race it is,
And what the germ that first has made it free.
That germ must constitute the living tie
That binds its generations to the end,
Change measures if it need, or policy,
But neither break the principle, nor bend.
Each race hath its own nature--fixed, defined,
By Heaven, and if its principle be won,
Kept changeless as the progress of the sun,
It mocks at storm and rage, at sea and wind,
And grows to consummation, as the tree,
Matured, that ever grew in culture free.
"That governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed: that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as TO THEM SHALL SEEM most likely to effect their safety and happiness."--[Declaration of Independence, July 4, '76.]
Not yet one hundred years have flown
Since on this very spot,
The subjects of a sovereign throne--
Liege-master of their lot--
This high degree sped o'er the sea,
From council-board and tent,
"No earthly power can rule the free
But by their own consent!"
For this, they fought as Saxons fight,
On bloody fields and long--
Themselves the champions of the right,
And judges of the wrong;
For this their stainless knighthood wore
The branded rebel's name,
Until the starry cross they bore
Set all the skies aflame!
And States co-equal and distinct
Outshone the western sun,
By one great charter interlinked--
Not blended into one;
Whose graven key that high decree
The grand inscription lent,
"No earthly power can rule the free
But by their own consent!"
Oh! sordid age! Oh! ruthless rage!
Oh! sacrilegious wrong!
A deed to blast the record page,
And snap the strings of song;
In that great charter's name, a band
By grovelling greed enticed,
Whose warrant is the grasping hand
Of creeds without a Christ--
States that have trampled every pledge
Its crystal code contains,
Now give their swords a keener edge
To harness it with chains--
To make a bond of brotherhood
The sanction and the seal,
By which to arm a rabble brood
With fratricidal steel.
Who, conscious that their cause is black,
In puling prose and rhyme,
Talk hatefully of love, and tack
Hypocrisy to crime;
Who smile and smite, engross the gorge
Or impotently frown;
And call us "rebels" with King George,
As if they wore his crown!
Most venal of a venal race,
Who think you cheat the sky
With every pharisaic face
And simulated lie;
Round Freedom's lair, with weapons bare,
We greet the light divine
Of those who throned the goddess there,
And yet inspire the shrine!
Our loved ones' graves are at our feet,
Their homesteads at our back--
No belted Southron can retreat
With women on his track;
Peal, bannered host, the proud decree
Which from your fathers went,
"No earthly power can rule the free
But by their own consent!"
Wouldst thou have me love thee, dearest,
With a woman's proudest heart,
Which shall ever hold thee nearest,
Shrined in its inmost heart?
Listen, then! My country's calling
On her sons to meet the foe!
Leave these groves of rose and myrtle;
Drop thy dreamy harp of love!
Like young Korner--scorn the turtle,
When the eagle screams above!
Dost thou pause?--Let dastards dally--
Do thou for thy country fight!
'Neath her noble emblem rally--
"God, our country, and our right!"
Listen! now her trumpet's calling
On her sons to meet the foe!
Woman's heart is soft and tender,
But 'tis proud and faithful too:
Shall she be her land's defender?
Lover! Soldier! up and do!
Seize thy father's ancient falchion,
Which once flashed as freedom's star!
Till sweet peace--the bow and halcyon,
Stilled the stormy strife of war.
Listen! now thy country's calling
On her sons to meet her foe!
Sweet is love in moonlight bowers!
Sweet the altar and the flame!
Sweet the spring-time with her flowers!
Sweeter far the patriot's name!
Should the God who smiles above thee,
Doom thee to a soldier's grave,
Hearts will break, but fame will love thee,
Canonized among the brave!
Listen, then! thy country's calling
On her sons to meet the foe!
Rather would I view thee lying
On the last red field of strife,
'Mid thy country's heroes dying,
Than become a dastard's wife!
I know the sun shines, and the lilacs are blowing,
And summer sends kisses by beautiful May--
Oh! to see all the treasures the spring is bestowing,
And think--my boy Willie enlisted to-day.
It seems but a day since at twilight, low humming,
I rocked him to sleep with his cheek upon mine,
While Robby, the four-year old, watched for the coming
Of father, adown the street's indistinct line.
It is many a year since my Harry departed,
To come back no more in the twilight or dawn;
And Robby grew weary of watching, and started
Alone on the journey his father had gone.
It is many a year--and this afternoon sitting
At Robby's old window, I heard the band play,
And suddenly ceased dreaming over my knitting,
To recollect Willie is twenty to-day.
And that, standing beside him this soft May-day morning,
The sun making gold of his wreathed cigar smoke,
I saw in his sweet eyes and lips a faint warning,
And choked down the tears when he eagerly spoke:
"Dear mother, you know how these Northmen are crowing,
They would trample the rights of the South in the dust;
The boys are all fire; and they wish I were going--"
He stopped, but his eyes said, "Oh, say if I must!"
I smiled on the boy, though my heart it seemed breaking,
My eyes filled with tears, so I turned them away,
And answered him, "Willie, 'tis well you are waking--
Go, act as your father would bid you, to-day!"
I sit in the window, and see the flags flying,
And drearily list to the roll of the drum,
And smother the pain in my heart that is lying,
And bid all the fears in my bosom be dumb.
I shall sit in the window when summer is lying
Out over the fields, and the honey-bee's hum
Lulls the rose at the porch from her tremulous sighing,
And watch for the face of my darling to come.
And if he should fall--his young life he has given
For freedom's sweet sake; and for me, I will pray
Once more with my Harry and Robby in Heaven
To meet the dear boy that enlisted to-day.
Written at Pointe Coupee, LA., April 26, 1861. First Published in the New Orleans Delta.
The despot's heel is on thy shore,
Maryland!
His torch is at thy temple door,
Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore,
And be the battle-queen of yore,
Maryland! My Maryland!
Hark to an exiled son's appeal,
Maryland!
My Mother-State, to thee I kneel,
Maryland!
For life and death, for woe and weal,
Thy peerless chivalry reveal,
And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel,
Maryland! My Maryland!
Thou wilt not cower in the dust,
Maryland!
Thy beaming sword shall never rust,
Maryland!
Remember Carroll's sacred trust,
Remember Howard's warlike thrust,
And all thy slumberers with the just,
Maryland! My Maryland!
Come! 'tis the red dawn of the day,
Maryland!
Come! with thy panoplied array,
Maryland!
With Ringgold's spirit for the fray,
With Watson's blood at Monterey,
With fearless Lowe and dashing May,
Maryland! My Maryland!
Come! for thy shield is bright and strong,
Maryland!
Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong,
Maryland!
Come! to thine own heroic throng,
That stalks with Liberty along,
And ring thy dauntless Slogan-song,
Maryland! My Maryland!
Dear Mother! burst the tyrant's chain,
Maryland!
Virginia should not call in vain,
Maryland!
She meets her sisters on the plain--
"Sic semper," 'tis the proud refrain
That baffles minions back amain,
Maryland!
Arise, in majesty again,
Maryland! My Maryland!
I see the blush upon thy cheek,
Maryland!
For thou wast ever bravely meek,
Maryland!
But lo! there surges forth a shriek
From hill to hill, from creek to creek--
Potomac calls to Chesapeake,
Maryland! My Maryland!
Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll,
Maryland!
Thou wilt not crook to his control,
Maryland!
Better the fire upon thee roll,
Better the shot, the blade, the bowl,
Than crucifixion of the soul,
Maryland! My Maryland!
I hear the distant thunder hum,
Maryland!
The Old Line bugle, fife, and drum,
Maryland!
She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb--
Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!
She breathes--she burns! she'll come! she'll come!
Maryland! My Maryland!
He is acting o'er the battle,
With his cap and feather gay,
Singing out his soldier-prattle,
In a mockish manly way--
With the boldest, bravest footstep,
Treading firmly up and down,
And his banner waving softly,
O'er his boyish locks of brown.
And I sit beside him sewing,
With a busy heart and hand,
For the gallant soldiers going
To the far-off battle land--
And I gaze upon my jewel,
In his baby spirit bold,
My little blue-eyed soldier,
Just a second summer old.
Still a deep, deep well of feeling,
In my mother's heart is stirred,
And the tears come softly stealing
At each imitative word!
There's a struggle in my bosom,
For I love my darling boy--
He's the gladness of my spirit,
He's the sunlight of my joy!
Yet I think upon my country,
And my spirit groweth bold--
Oh! I wish my blue-eyed soldier
Were but twenty summers old!
I would speed him to the battle--
I would arm him for the fight;
I would give him to his country,
For his country's wrong and right!
I would nerve his hand with blessing
From the "God of battles" won--
With His helmet and His armor,
I would cover o'er my son.
Oh! I know there'd be a struggle,
For I love my darling boy;
He's the gladness of my spirit,
He's the sunlight of my joy!
Yet in thinking of my country,
Oh! my spirit groweth bold,
And I with my blue-eyed soldier
Were but twenty summers old!
Huzza! huzza! for the Good Old Cause,
'Tis a stirring sound to hear,
For it tells of rights and liberties,
Our fathers bought so dear;
It brings up the Jersey prison-ship,
The spot where Warren fell,
And the scaffold which echoes the dying words
Of murdered Hayne's farewell.
The Good Old Cause! it is still the same
Though age upon age may roll;
'Tis the cause of the right against the wrong,
Burning bright in each generous soul;
'Tis the cause of all who claim to live
As freemen on Freedom's sod;
Of the widow, who wails her husband and sons,
By Tyranny's heel down-trod.
And whoever burns with a holy zeal,
To behold his country free,
And would sooner see her baptized in blood,
Than to bend the suppliant knee;
Must agree to follow her White-Cross flag,
Where the storms of battle roll,
A soldier--A SOLDIER!--with arms in his hands,
And the love of the South in his soul!
Come one, come all, at your country's call,
Let none remain behind,
But those too young, and those too old,
The feeble, the halt, the blind;
Let every man, whether rich or poor,
Who can carry a knapsack and gun,
Repair to the ranks of our Southern host,
'Till the cause of the South is won.
But the son of the South, if such there be,
Who will shrink from the contest now,
From a love of ease, or the lust of gain,
Or through fear of the Yankee foe;
May his neighbors shrink from his proffered hand,
As though it was soiled for aye,
And may every woman turn her cheek
From his craven lips away;
May his country's curse be on his head,
And may no man ever see,
A gentle bride by the traitor's side,
Or children about his knee.
Huzza! huzza! for the Good Old Cause,
'Tis a stirring sound to hear;
For it tells of rights and liberties,
Our fathers bought so dear;
It summons our braves from their bloody graves.
To receive our fond applause,
And bids us tread in the steps of those
Who died for the Good Old Cause.
They have met at last--as storm-clouds
meet in heaven;
And the Northmen, back and bleeding,
have been driven:
And their thunders have been stilled,
And their leaders crushed or killed,
And their ranks, with terror thrilled,
rent and riven!
Like the leaves of Vallambrosa
they are lying;
In the moonlight, in the midnight,
dead and dying:
Like those leaves before the gale,
Swept their legions, wild and pale;
While the host that made them quail
stood, defying.
When aloft in morning sunlight
flags were flaunted,
And "swift vengeance on the rebel"
proudly vaunted:
Little did they think that night
Should close upon their shameful flight,
And rebels, victors in the fight,
stand undaunted.
But peace to those who perished
in our passes!
Light be the earth above them!
green the grasses!
Long shall Northmen rue the day,
When they met our stern array,
And shrunk from battle's wild affray
at Manassas!
Glorious Virginia! Freedom sprang
Light to her feet at thy trumpet's clang:
At the first sound of that clarion blast,
Foes like the chaff from the whirlwind passed--
Passed to their doom: from that hour no more
Triumphs their cause by sea or shore.
Glorious Virginia! noble the blood
That hath bathed thy fields in a crimson flood;
On many a wide-spread and sunny plain,
Like leaves of autumn thy dead have lain:
The Southron heart is their funeral urn!
The Southern slogan their requiem stern!
Glorious Virginia! to thee, to thee
We lean, as the shoots to the parent tree;
Bending in awe at thy glance of might;--
First in the council, first in the fight!
While our flag is fanned by the breath of fame,
Glorious Virginia! we'll bless thy name.
Oh, God of battles! once again,
With banner, trump, and drum,
And garments in thy wine-press dyed,
To give Thee thanks we come.
No goats or bullocks garlanded,
Unto thine altars go;
With brothers' blood, by brothers shed,
Our glad libations flow,
From pest-house and from dungeon foul,
Where, maimed and torn, they die,
From gory trench and charnel-house,
Where, heap on heap, they lie.
In every groan that yields a soul,
Each shriek a heart that rends,
With every breath of tainted air,
Our homage, Lord, ascends.
We thank Thee for the sabre's gash,
The cannon's havoc wild;
We bless Thee for the widow's tears,
The want that starves her child!
We give Thee praise that Thou hast lit
The torch, and fanned the flame;
That lust and rapine hunt their prey,
Kind Father, in Thy name!
That, for the songs of idle joy
False angels sang of yore,
Thou sendest War on earth--ill-will
To men for evermore!
We know that wisdom, truth, and right
To us and ours are given;
That Thou hast clothed us with the wrath,
To do the work of heaven.
We know that plains and cities waste
Are pleasant in Thine eyes--
Thou lov'st a hearthstone desolate,
Thou lov'st a mourner's cries.
Let not our weakness fall below
The measure of Thy will,
And while the press hath wine to bleed,
Oh, tread it with us still!
Teach us to hate--as Jesus taught
Fond fools, of yore, to love;
Give us Thy vengeance as our own--
Thy pity, hide above!
Teach us to turn, with reeking hands,
The pages of Thy word,
And learn the blessed curses there,
On them that sheathe the sword.
Where'er we tread may deserts spring,
'Till none are left to slay;
And when the last red drop is shed,
We'll kneel again--and pray!
Man makes his own dread fates, and these in turn
Create his tyrants. In our lust and passion,
Our appetite and ignorance, he springs.
The creature of our need as our desert,
The scourge that whips us for decaying virtue,
He chastens to reform us! Never yet,
In mortal life, did tyrant rise to power,
But in the people's worst infirmities
Of crime and greed. The creature of our vices,
The loathsome ulcer of our vicious moods,
He is decreed their proper punishment.
"The National Quarterly depicts a remarkable scene, which occurred some years since on one of the British transport ships. The commander of the troops on board, seeing that the vessel must soon sink, and that there was no hope of saving his men, drew them up in order of battle, and, as in the presence of a human enemy, bravely faced the doom that was before them. We know of no more impressive illustration of the power of military discipline in the presence of death."
The last farewells are breathed by loving lips,
The last fond prayer for darling ones is said,
And o'er each heart stern sorrow's dark eclipse
Her sable pall hath spread.
Far, far beyond each anxious watcher's sight,
Baring her bosom to the wanton sea,
The lordly ship sweeps onward in her might,
Her tameless majesty.
Forth from his fortress in the western sky,
Flashing defiance on each crested wave,
Out glares the sun, with red and lowering eye,
Grand, even in his grave.
Till, waxing bolder as his rays decline,
The clustering billows o'er his ramparts sweep,
Slow droops his banner--fades his light divine,
And darkness rules the deep.
Look once again!--Night's sombre shades have fled:
But the pale rays that glimmer from their sheath,
Serve but to show the blackness overhead,
And the wild void beneath.
Mastless and helmless drifts the helpless bark;
Her pride, her majesty, her glory gone;
While o'er the waters broods the tempest dark,
And the wild winds howl on.
But hark! amid the madness of the storm
There comes an echo o'er the surging wave;
Firm at its call the dauntless legions form,
The resolute and brave.
Eight hundred men, the pride of England's host,
In stern array stand marshall'd on her deck,
Calmly as though they knew not they were lost--
Lost in that shattered wreck.
Eight hundred men,--old England's tried and true,
Their hopes, their fears, their tasks of glory done,
Steadfast, till the last foe be conquered too,
And the last fight be won.
Free floats their banner o'er them as they stand;
No mournful dirge may o'er the waters ring;
Out peals the anthem, glorious and grand,
"The king! God save the king!"
Lower and lower sinks the fated bark,
Closer and closer creeps the ruthless wave,
But loud outswells, across the waters dark,
The death-song of the brave.
Over their heads the gurgling billows sweep;
Still o'er the waves the last fond echoes ring,
Out-thrilling from the caverns of the deep,
"The king! God save the king!"
Oh thou! whoe'er thou art that reads this page,
Learn here a lesson of high, holy faith,
For all throughout our earthly pilgrimage,
We hold a tryst with death.
Not in the battle-field's tumultuous strife,
Not in the hour when vanquished foemen fly,
Not in the midst of bright and happy life,
Is it most hard to die.
Greater the guerdon, holier the prize,
Of him who trusts, and waits in lowly mood;
Oh! learn how high, how holy courage lies
In patient fortitude.
Calm as that second summer which precedes
The first fall of the snow,
In the broad sunlight of heroic deeds,
The city bides the foe.
As yet, behind their ramparts, stern and proud,
Her bolted thunders sleep--
Dark Sumter, like a battlemented cloud,
Looms o'er the solemn deep.
No Calpe frowns from lofty cliff or scaur
To guard the holy strand;
But Moultrie holds in leash her dogs of war,
Above the level sand.
And down the dunes a thousand guns lie couched.
Unseen, beside the flood--
Like tigers in some Orient jungle crouched,
That wait and watch for blood.
Meanwhile, through streets still echoing with trade,
Walk grave and thoughtful men,
Whose hands may one day wield the patriot's blade
As lightly as the pen.
And maidens, with such eyes as would grow dim
Over a bleeding hound,
Seem each one to have caught the strength of him
Whose sword she sadly bound.
Thus girt without and garrisoned at home,
Day patient following day,
Old Charleston looks from roof, and spire, and dome,
Across her tranquil bay.
Ships, through a hundred foes, from Saxon lands
And spicy Indian ports,
Bring Saxon steel and iron to her hands,
And summer to her courts.
But still, along yon dim Atlantic line,
The only hostile smoke
Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine,
From some frail, floating oak.
Shall the spring dawn, and she still clad in smiles,
And with an unscathed brow,
Rest in the strong arms of her palm-crowned isles,
As fair and free as now?
We know not; in the temple of the Fates
God has inscribed her doom;
And, all untroubled in her faith, she waits
The triumph or the tomb.
What! still does the Mother of Treason uprear
Her crest 'gainst the Furies that darken her sea?
Unquelled by mistrust, and unblanched by a Fear,
Unbowed her proud head, and unbending her knee,
Calm, steadfast, and free?
Aye! launch your red lightnings, blaspheme in your wrath,
Shock earth, wave, and heaven with the blasts of your ire;--
But she seizes your death-bolts, yet hot from their path,
And hurls back your lightnings, and mocks at the fire
Of your fruitless desire.
Ringed round by her Brave, a fierce circlet of flame,
Flashes up from the sword-points that cover her breast;
She is guarded by Love, and enhaloed by Fame,
And never, we swear, shall your footsteps be pressed
Where her dead heroes rest!
Her voice shook the Tyrant!--sublime from her tongue
Fell the accents of warning,--a Prophetess grand,--
On her soil the first life-notes of Liberty rung,
And the first stalwart blow of her gauntleted hand
Broke the sleep of her land!
What more! she hath grasped with her iron-bound will
The Fate that would trample her honor to earth,--
The light in those deep eyes is luminous still
With the warmth of her valor, the glow of her worth,
Which illumine the Earth!
And beside her a Knight the great Bayard had loved,
"Without fear or reproach," lifts her Banner on high;
He stands in the vanguard, majestic, unmoved,
And a thousand firm souls, when that Chieftain is nigh,
Vow, "'tis easy to die!"
Their swords have gone forth on the fetterless air!
The world's breath is hushed at the conflict! before
Gleams the bright form of Freedom with wreaths in her hair--
And what though the chaplet be crimsoned with gore,
We shall prize her the more!
And while Freedom lures on with her passionate eyes
To the height of her promise, the voices of yore,
From the storied Profound of past ages arise,
And the pomps of their magical music outpour
O'er the war-beaten shore.
Then gird your brave Empress, O! Heroes, with flame
Flashed up from the sword-points that cover her breast,
She is guarded by Love, and enhaloed by Fame,
And never, base Foe! shall your footsteps be pressed
Where her dead Martyrs rest!
Ye men of Alabama,
Awake, arise, awake!
And rend the coils asunder
Of this Abolition snake.
If another fold he fastens--
If this final coil he plies--
In the cold clasp of hate and power
Fair Alabama dies.
Though round your lower limbs and waist
His deadly coils I see,
Yet, yet, thank Heaven! your head and arms,
And good right hand, are free;
And in that hand there glistens--
O God! what joy to feel!--
A polished blade, full sharp and keen,
Of tempered State Rights steel.
Now, by the free-born sires
From whose brave loins ye sprung!
And by the noble mothers
At whose fond breasts ye hung!
And by your wives and daughters,
And by the ills they dread,
Drive deep that good Secession steel
Right through the Monster's head.
This serpent Abolition
Has been coiling on for years;
We have reasoned, we have threatened,
We have begged almost with tears:
Now, away, away with Union,
Since on our Southern soil
The only union left us
Is an anaconda's coil.
Brave little South Carolina
Will strike the self-same blow,
And Florida, and Georgia,
And Mississippi too;
And Arkansas, and Texas;
And at the death, I ween,
The head will fall beneath the blows
Of all the brave Fifteen.
In this our day of trial,
Let feuds and factions cease,
Until above this howling storm
We see the sign of Peace.
Let Southern men, like brothers,
In solid phalanx stand,
And poise their spears, and lock their shields,
To guard their native land.
The love that for the Union
Once in our bosoms beat,
From insult and from injury
Has turned to scorn and hate;
And the banner of Secession
To-day we lift on high,
Resolved, beneath that sacred flag,
To conquer, or TO DIE!
Gentlemen of the South,
Gird on your glittering swords!
Darkly along our borders fair
Gather the Northern hordes.
Ruthless and fierce they come
At the fiery cannon's mouth,
To blast the glory of our land,
Gentlemen of the South!
Ride forth in your stately pride,
Each bearing on his shield
Ensigns our fathers won of yore
On many a well-fought field!
Let this be your battle-cry,
Even to the cannon's mouth,
Cor unum via una! Onward,
Gentlemen of the South!
Brave knights of a knightly race,
Gordon, and Chambers, and Gray,
Show to the minions of the North
How Valor dares the fray!
Let them read on each stainless crest
At the belching cannon's mouth,
Decori decus addit avito,
Gentlemen of the South!
Morrison, Douglas, Stuart,
Erskine, and Bradford, and West,
Your gauntlets on many a bloody field
Have stood the battle's test!
Animo non astutia!
March to the cannon's mouth,
Heirs of the brave dead centuries! Onward,
Gentlemen of the South!
Call forth your stalwart men,
Workers in brass and steel!
Bid the swart artisans come forth
At sound of the trumpet's peal!
Give them your war-cry, Erskine!
Fight! to the cannon's mouth!
Bid the men Forward! Douglas, Forward!
Yeomanry of the South!
Brave hunters! Ye have met
The fierce black bear in the fray;
Ye have trailed the panther night by night,
Ye have chased the fox by day!
Your prancing chargers pant
To dash at the gray wolf's mouth,
Your arms are sure of their quarry! Onward!
Gentlemen of the South!
Fight! that the lowly serf
And the high-born lady still
May bide in their proud dependency,
Free subjects of your will!
Teach the base North how ill,
At the fiery cannon's mouth,
He fares who touches your household gods,
Gentlemen of the South!
From mother, and wife, and child,
From faithful and happy slave,
Prayers for your sakes ascend to Him
Whose arm is strong to save!
We check the gathering tears,
Though ye go to the cannon's mouth;
Dominus providebit! Onward,
Gentlemen of the South!
Memphis Appeal.
Southrons, hear your Country call you!
Up! lest worse than death befall you!
To arms! to arms! to arms! in Dixie!
Lo! all the beacon-fires are lighted,
Let all hearts be now united!
To arms! to arms! to arms! in Dixie!
Advance the flag; of Dixie!
Hurrah! hurrah!
For Dixie's land we'll take our stand,
To live or die for Dixie!
To arms! to arms!
And conquer peace for Dixie!
To arms! to arms!
And conquer peace for Dixie!
Hear the Northern thunders mutter!
Northern flags in South-winds flutter!
To arms! etc.
Send them back your fierce defiance!
Stamp upon the accursed alliance!
To arms! etc.
Advance the flag of Dixie! etc.
Fear no danger! shun no labor!
Lift up rifle, pike, and sabre!
To arms! etc.
Shoulder pressing close to shoulder,
Let the odds make each heart bolder!
To arms! etc.
Advance the flag of Dixie, etc.
How the South's great heart rejoices
At your cannon's ringing voices;
To arms! etc.
For faith betrayed and pledges broken,
Wrong inflicted, insults spoken.
To arms! etc.
Advance the flag of Dixie, etc.
Strong as lions, swift as eagles,
Back to their kennels hunt these beagles!
To arms! etc.
Cut the unequal bonds asunder!
Let them hence each other plunder!
To arms! etc.
Advance the flag of Dixie! etc.
Swear upon your Country's altar,
Never to submit or falter;
To arms! etc.
Till the spoilers are defeated,
Till the Lord's work is completed.
To arms! etc.
Advance the flag of Dixie! etc.
Halt not till our Federation
Secures among earth's Powers its station!
To arms! etc.
Then at peace, and crowned with glory,
Hear your children tell the story!
To arms! etc.
Advance the flag of Dixie! etc.
If the loved ones weep in sadness,
Victory soon shall bring them gladness;
To arms! etc.
Exultant pride soon banish sorrow;
Smiles chase tears away to-morrow.
To arms! etc.
Advance the flag of Dixie! etc.
Now bring me out my buckskin suit!
&nbs