Chapter XV

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.

Charleston.

By Henry Timrod.

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.

Charleston.

By Paul H. Hayne.

I.

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?

II.

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.

III.

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!

IV.

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!

V.

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!

VI.

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!"

VII.

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!

VIII.

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.

IX.

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!"

By John D. Phelan, of Montgomery, Ala.

Air--"Ye Mariners of England."

I.

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.

II.

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.

III.

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.

IV.

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.

V.

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.

VI.

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.