War Poetry of the South | Page 5

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.
By Catherine M. Warfield.
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.
The Southern Cross.
By E. K. Blunt.
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.
South Carolina.
December 20, 1860.
S. Henry Dickson.
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.
The New Star.
By B.M. Anderson.
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