War Poetry of the South | Page 7

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!
The Fate of the Republics.
Charleston Mercury.
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.
The Voice of the South.
Tyrtæus.--_Charleston
Mercury._

'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