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.
May the names of the dead that we cherish, Fill memory's cup to the brim; May the laurels they've won never perish, "Nor star of their glory grow dim;" May the States of the South never sever, But the champions of freedom e'er be; May they flourish Confederate forever, The boast of the brave and the free. CHORUS.--Three cheers, etc.
[1] "Land of King Cotton" was the favorite song of the Tennessee troops, but especially of the Thirteenth and One Hundred and Fifty-fourth regiments.
If You Love Me.
By J. Augustine Signaigo.
You have told me that you love me, That you worship at my shrine; That no purity above me Can on earth be more divine. Though the kind words you have spoken. Sound to me most sweetly strange, Will your pledges ne'er be broken? Will there be in you no change?
If you love me half so wildly-- Half so madly as you say, Listen to me, darling, mildly-- Would you do aught I would pray? If you would, then hear the thunder Of our country's cannon speak! While by war she's rent asunder, Do not come my love to seek.
If you love me, do not ponder, Do not breathe what you would say, Do not look at me with wonder, Join your country in the fray. Go! your aid and right hand lend her, Breast the tyrant's angry blast: Be her own and my defender-- Strike for freedom to the last,
Then I'll vow to love none other, While you nobly dare and do; As you're faithful to our mother, So I'll faithful prove to you. But return not while the thunder Lives in one invading sword; Strike the despot's hirelings under-- Own no master but the Lord.
The Cotton Boll.
By Henry Timrod.
While I recline At ease beneath This immemorial pine, Small sphere!-- By dusky fingers brought this morning here? And shown with boastful smiles,-- I turn thy cloven sheath, Through which the soft white fibres peer, That, with their gossamer bands, Unite, like love, the sea-divided lands, And slowly, thread by thread, Draw forth the folded strands, Than which the trembling line, By whose frail help yon startled spider fled Down the tall spear-grass from his swinging bed, Is scarce more fine; And as the tangled skein Unravels in my hands, Betwixt me and the noonday light, A veil seems lifted, and for miles and miles The landscape broadens on my sight, As, in the little boll, there lurked a spell Like that which, in the ocean shell, With mystic sound, Breaks down the narrow walls that hem us round, And turns some city lane Into the restless main, With all his capes and isles!
Yonder bird,-- Which floats, as if at rest, In those blue tracts above the thunder, where No vapors cloud the stainless air, And never sound is heard, Unless at such rare time When, from the City of the Blest, Rings down some golden chime,-- Sees not from his high place So vast a cirque of summer space As widens round me in one mighty field, Which, rimmed by seas and sands, Doth hail its earliest daylight in the beams Of gray Atlantic dawns; And, broad as realms made up of many lands, Is lost afar Behind the crimson hills and purple lawns Of sunset, among plains which roll their streams Against the Evening Star! And lo! To the remotest point of sight, Although I gaze upon no waste of snow, The endless field is white; And the whole landscape glows, For many a shining league away, With such accumulated light As Polar lands would flash beneath a tropic day! Nor lack there (for the vision grows, And the small charm within my hands-- More potent even than the fabled one, Which oped whatever golden mystery Lay hid in fairy wood or magic vale, The curious ointment of the Arabian tale-- Beyond all mortal sense Doth stretch my sight's horizon, and I see Beneath its simple influence, As if, with Uriel's crown, I stood in some great temple of the Sun, And looked, as Uriel, down)-- Nor lack there pastures rich and fields all green With all the common gifts of God, For temperate airs and torrid sheen Weave Edens of the sod; Through lands which look one sea of billowy gold Broad rivers wind their devious ways; A hundred isles in their embraces fold A hundred luminous bays; And through yon purple haze Vast mountains lift their pluméd peaks cloud-crowned; And, save where up their sides the ploughman creeps, An unknown forest girds them grandly round, In whose dark shades a future navy sleeps! Ye stars, which though unseen, yet with me gaze Upon this loveliest fragment of the earth! Thou Sun, that kindlest all thy gentlest rays Above it, as to light a favorite hearth! Ye clouds, that in your temples in the West See nothing brighter than its humblest flowers! And, you, ye Winds, that on the ocean's breast Are kissed to coolness ere ye reach its bowers! Bear witness with me in my song of praise, And tell the world that, since the world began, No fairer land hath fired a poet's lays, Or given a home to man!
But these are charms already widely blown! His be the meed whose pencil's trace Hath touched our very swamps with grace, And round whose tuneful way All Southern laurels bloom; The Poet of "The Woodlands," unto whom Alike are known The flute's low breathing and the trumpet's tone, And the soft west-wind's sighs; But who shall utter all the debt, 0 Land! wherein all powers are met That bind a people's heart, The world doth owe thee at this day, And which it never can repay, Yet scarcely deigns to own! Where sleeps the poet who shall fitly sing The source wherefrom doth spring That mighty commerce which, confined To the mean channels of no selfish mart, Goes out to every shore Of this broad earth, and throngs the sea with ships That bear no thunders; hushes hungry lips In alien lands; Joins with a delicate web remotest strands; And gladdening rich and poor, Doth gild Parisian domes, Or feed the cottage-smoke of English homes, And only bounds its blessings by mankind! In offices like these, thy mission lies, My Country! and it shall not end As long as rain shall fall and Heaven bend In blue above thee; though thy foes be hard And cruel as their weapons, it shall guard Thy hearthstones as a bulwark; make thee great In white and bloodless state; And, haply, as the years increase-- Still working through its humbler reach With that large wisdom which the ages teach-- Revive the half-dead dream of universal peace!
As men who labor in that mine Of Cornwall, hollowed out beneath the bed Of ocean, when a storm rolls overhead, Hear the dull booming of the world of brine Above them, and a mighty muffled roar Of winds and waters, and yet toil calmly on, And split the rock, and pile the massive ore, Or carve a niche, or shape the archéd roof; So I, as calmly, weave my woof Of song, chanting the days to come, Unsilenced, though the quiet summer air Stirs with the bruit of battles, and each dawn Wakes from its starry silence to the hum Of many gathering armies. Still, In that we sometimes hear, Upon the Northern winds the voice of woe Not wholly drowned in triumph, though I know The end must crown us, and a few brief years Dry all our tears, I may not sing too gladly. To Thy will Resigned, O Lord! we cannot all forget That there is much even Victory must regret. And, therefore, not too long From the great burden of our country's wrong Delay our just release!
And, if it may be, save These sacred fields of peace From stain of patriot or of hostile blood! Oh, help us Lord! to roll the crimson flood Back on its course, and, while our banners wing Northward, strike with us! till the Goth shall cling To his own blasted altar-stones, and crave Mercy; and we shall grant it, and dictate The lenient future of his fate There, where some rotting ships and trembling quays Shall one day mark the Port which ruled the Western seas.
The Battle of Charleston Harbor.
April 7th, 1863.
By Paul H. Hayne.