Morris Island
Oh! from the deeds well done, the blood well shed
In a good cause springs up to crown the land
With ever-during verdure, memory fed,
Wherever freedom rears one fearless band,
The genius, which makes sacred time and place,
Shaping the grand memorials of a race!
The barren rock becomes a monument,
The sea-shore sands a shrine;
And each brave life, in desperate conflict spent,
Grows to a memory which prolongs a line!
Oh! barren isle--oh! fruitless shore,
Oh! realm devoid of beauty--how the light
From glory's sun streams down for evermore,
Hallowing your ancient barrenness with bright!
Brief dates, your lowly forts; but full of glory,
Worthy a life-long story;
Remembered, to be chronicled and read,
When all your gallant garrisons are dead;
And to be sung
While liberty and letters find a tongue!
Taught by the grandsires at the ingle-blaze,
Through the long winter night;
Pored over, memoried well, in winter days,
While youthful admiration, with delight,
Hangs, breathless, o'er the tale, with silent praise;
Seasoning delight with wonder, as he reads
Of stubborn conflict and audacious deeds;
Watching the endurance of the free and brave,
Through the protracted struggle and close fight,
Contending for the lands they may not save,
Against the felon, and innumerous foe;
Still struggling, though each rampart proves a grave.
For home, and all that's dear to man below!
Earth reels and ocean rocks at every blow;
But still undaunted, with a martyr's might,
They make for man a new Thermopylae;
And, perishing for freedom, still go free!
Let but each humble islet of our coast
Thus join the terrible issue to the last;
And never shall the invader make his boast
Of triumph, though with mightiest panoply
He seeks to rend and rive, to blight and blast!
Ode--
I
Do ye quail but to hear, Carolinians,
The first foot-tramp of Tyranny's minions?
Have ye buckled on armor, and brandished the spear,
But to shrink with the trumpet's first peal on the ear?
Why your forts now embattled on headland and height,
Your sons all in armor, unless for the fight?
Did ye think the mere show of your guns on the wall,
And your shouts, would the souls of the heathen appal?
That his lusts and his appetites, greedy as Hell,
Led by Mammon and Moloch, would sink at a spell;--
Nor strive, with the tiger's own thirst, lest the flesh
Should be torn from his jaws, while yet bleeding afresh.
II.
For shame! To the breach, Carolinians!--
To the death for your sacred dominions!--
Homes, shrines, and your cities all reeking in flame,
Cry aloud to your souls, in their sorrow and shame;
Your greybeards, with necks in the halter--
Your virgins, defiled at the altar,--
In the loathsome embrace of the felon and slave,
Touch loathsomer far than the worm of the grave!
Ah! God! if you fail in this moment of gloom!
How base were the weakness, how horrid the doom!
With the fiends in your streets howling paeans,
And the Beast o'er another Orleans!
III.
Do ye quail, as on yon little islet
They have planted the feet that defile it?
Make its sands pure of taint, by the stroke of the sword,
And by torrents of blood in red sacrifice pour'd!
Doubts are Traitors, if once they persuade you to fear,
That the foe, in his foothold, is safe from your spear!
When the foot of pollution is set on your shores,
What sinew and soul should be stronger than yours?
By the fame--by the shame--of your sires,
Set on, though each freeman expires;
Better fall, grappling fast with the foe, to their graves,
Than groan in your fetters, the slaves of your slaves.
IV.
The voice of your loud exultation
Hath rung, like a trump, through the nation,
How loudly, how proudly, of deeds to be done,
The blood of the sire in the veins of the son!
Old Moultrie and Sumter still keep at your gates,
And the foe in his foothold as patiently waits.
He asks, with a taunt, by your patience made bold,
If the hot spur of Percy grows suddenly cold--
Makes merry with boasts of your city his own,
And the Chivalry fled, ere his trumpet is blown;
Upon them, O sons of the mighty of yore,
And fatten the sands with their Sodomite gore!
V.
Where's the dastard that cowers and falters
In the sight of his hearthstones and altars?
With the faith of the free in the God of the brave,
Go forth; ye are mighty to conquer and save!
By the blue Heaven shining above ye,
By the pure-hearted thousands that love ye,
Ye are armed with a might to prevail in the fight,
And an aegis to shield and a weapon to smite!
Then fail not, and quail not; the foe shall prevail not:
With the faith and the will, ye shall conquer him still.
To the knife--with the knife, Carolinians,
For your homes, and your sacred dominions.
Ode--Shell The Old City! Shell!
I.
Shell the old city I shell!
Ye myrmidons of Hell;
Ye serve your master well,
With hellish arts!
Hurl down, with bolt and fire,
The grand old shrines, the spire;
But know, your demon ire
Subdues no hearts!
II.
There, we defy ye still,
With sworn and resolute will;
Courage ye cannot kill
While we have breath!
Stone walls your bolts may break,
But, ere our souls ye shake,
Of the whole land we'll make
One realm of death!
III.
Dear are our homes! our eyes
Weep at their sacrifice;
And, with each bolt that flies,
Each roof that falls,
The pang extorts the tear,
That things so precious, dear
To memory, love, and care,
Sink with our walls.
IV.
Trophies of ancient time,
When, with great souls, sublime,
Opposing force and crime,
Our fathers fought;
Relics of golden hours,
When, for our shrines and bowers,
Genius, with magic powers,
Her triumphs wrought!
V.
Each Sabbath-hallowed dome,
Each ancient family home,
The dear old southwest room,
All trellised round;
Where gay, bright summer vines,
Linked in fantastic twines
With the sun's blazing lines,
Rubied the ground!
VI.
Homes, sacred to the past,
Which bore the hostile blast,
Though Spain, France, Britain cast
Their shot and shell!
Tombs of the mighty dead,
That in our battles bled,
When on our infant head
These furies fell!
VII.
Halls which the foreign guest
Found of each charm possessed,
With cheer unstinted blessed,
And noblest grace;
Where, drawing to her side
The stranger, far and wide,
Frank courtesy took pride
To give him place!
VIII.
The shaded walks--the bowers
Where, through long summer hours,
Young Love first proved his powers
To win the prize;
Where every tree has heard
Some vows of love preferred,
And, with his leaves unstirred,
Watch'd lips and eyes.
IX.
Gardens of tropic blooms,
That, through the shaded rooms,
Sent Orient-winged perfumes
With dusk and dawn;
The grand old laurel, tall,
As sovereign over all,
And, from the porch and hall,
The verdant lawn.
X.
Oh! when we think of these
Old homes, ancestral trees;
Where, in the sun and breeze,
At morn and even,
Was to enjoy the play
Of hearts at holiday,
And find, in blooms of May,
Foretaste of Heaven!
XI.
Where, as we cast our eyes
On thing's of precious prize,
Trophies of good and wise,
Grand, noble, brave;
And think of these, so late
Sacred to soul and state,
Doomed, as the wreck of fate,
By fiend and slave!--
XII.
The inevitable pain,
Coursing through blood and brain,
Drives forth, like winter rain,
The bitter tear!
We cannot help but weep,
From depth of hearts that keep
The memories, dread and deep.
To vengeance dear!
XIII.
Aye, for each tear we shed,
There shall be torrents red,
Not from the eye-founts fed,
But from the veins!
Bloody shall be the sweat,
Fiends, felons, that shall yet
Pay retribution's debt,
In torture's pains!
XIV.
Our tears shall naught abate,
Of what we owe to hate--
To the avenging fate--
To earth and Heaven!
And, soon or late, the hour
Shall bring th' atoning power,
When, through the clouds that lower,
The storm-bolt's driven!
XV.
Shell the old city--shell!
But, with each rooftree's knell,
Vows deep of vengeance fell,
Fire soul and eye!
With every tear that falls
Above our stricken walls
Each heart more fiercely calls,
'Avenge, or die!'
Ode--
I.
Our city by the sea,
As the rebel city known,
With a soul and spirit free
As the waves that make her zone,
Stands in wait for the fate
From the angry arm of hate;
But she nothing fears the terror of his blow;
She hath garrisoned her walls,
And for every son that falls,
She will spread a thousand palls
For-the foe!
II.
Old Moultrie at her gate,
Clad in arms and ancient fame.
Grimly watching, stands elate
To deliver bolt and flame!
Brave the band, at command,
To illumine sea and land
With a glory that shall honor days of yore;
And, as racers for their goals,
A thousand fiery souls,
While the drum of battle rolls,
Line the shore.
III.
Lo! rising at his side,
As if emulous to share
His old historic pride,
The vast form of Sumter there!
Girt by waves, which he braves
Though the equinoctial raves,
As the mountain braves the lightning on his steep;
And, like tigers crouching round,
Are the tribute forts that bound
All the consecrated ground,
By the deep!
IV.
It was calm, the April noon,
When, in iron-castled towers,
Our haughty foe came on,
With his aggregated powers;
All his might 'gainst the right,
Now embattled for the fight,
With Hell's hate and venom working in his heart;
A vast and dread array,
Glooming black upon the day,
Hell's passions all in play,
With Hell's art.
V.
But they trouble not the souls
Of our Carolina host,[1]
And the drum of battle rolls,
While each hero seeks his post;
Firm, though few, sworn to do,
Their old city full in view,
The brave city of their sires and their dead;
There each freeman had his brood,
All the dear ones of his blood,
And he knew they watching stood,
In their dread!
VI.
To the bare embattled height,
Then our gallant colonel sprung--
'Bid them welcome to the fight,'
Were the accents of his tongue--
'Music! band, pour out--grand--
The free song of Dixie Land!
Let it tell them we are joyful that they come!
Bid them welcome, drum and flute,
Nor be your cannon mute,
Give them chivalrous salute--
To their doom!'[2]
VII.
Out spoke an eager gun,
From the walls of Moultrie then;
And through clouds of sulph'rous dun,
Rose a shout of thousand men,
As the shot, hissing hot,
Goes in lightning to the spot--
Goes crashing wild through timber and through mail;
Then roared the storm from all,
Moultrie's ports and Sumter's wall--
Bursting bomb and driving ball--
Hell in hail!
VIII.
Full a hundred cannon roared
The dread welcome to the foe,
And his felon spirit cowered,
As he crouched beneath the blow!
As each side opened wide
To the iron and the tide,
He lost his faith in armor and in art;
And, with the loss of faith,
Came the dread of wounds and scath--
And the felon fear of death
Wrung his heart!
IX.
Quenched then his foul desires;
In his mortal pain and fear,
How feeble grew his fires,
How stayed his fell career!
How each keel, made to reel
'Neath our thunder, seems to kneel,
Their turrets staggering wildly, to and fro, blind and lame;
Ironsides and iron roof,
Held no longer bullet-proof,
Steal away, shrink aloof,
In their shame!
X.
But our lightnings follow fast,
With a vengeance sharp and hot;
Our bolts are on the blast,
And they rive with shell and shot!
Huge the form which they warm
With the hot breath of the storm;
Dread the crash which follows as each Titan mass is struck--
They shiver as they fly,
While their leader, drifting nigh,
Sinks, choking with the cry--
'Keokuk!'
XI.
To the brave old city, joy!
For that the hostile race,
Commissioned to destroy,
Hath fled in sore disgrace!
That our sons, at their guns,
Have beat back the modern Huns--
Have maintained their household fanes and their fires;
And free from taint and scath,
Have kept the fame and faith
(And will keep, through blood and death)
Of their sires!
XII.
To the Lord of Hosts the glory,
For His the arm and might,
That have writ for us the story,
And have borne us through the fight!
His our shield in that field--
Voice that bade us never yield;
Oh! had he not been with us through the terrors of that day?
His strength hath made us strong,
Cheered the right and crushed the wrong,
To His temple let us throng--
PRAISE AND PRAY!
