s ^ ""^3>"-l?^^?"^ ^^-%4 Mm ^^.^^^;' LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. |i I ^s^^.^ M-jz t — ' u I UNITED STAT I- 8 OP AMERICA. ||. :sfe^^l w. ^ r^s W: ^-^y^- <> ''' ■■•r%j^ W ' '--^ '-^'^^^ ) ■■''■' i/i^'V^ ' J^-:^; J,'^^ ■§ :| ^ ■^^^"^» %^ ^ -^^ oD'-^ ^^ ^^Ir^' :2) '1^: V^:. '^ ^5 ^'5'^^.^23> ^S "^0"^ : sP^ " >"'""2> " 5^ ^'O: >:) yjy ■ W>'^^^^^% syyy> 3^^> ^5^ > > ■ w^^yy> ^^^&i-^Q> _jl^ w:>o^ ^^^^^^3^2^" ag^o>' 5^^^^5^ir2ijb' ^^^y:^'>:^" 1' -'-N-)^ ■' '"O ^■- 7 - > ) D3^^ >^ :d^ V > 2)^ -> > :>:> 3 ■> 3 ■^.e>->: ^ ^1>^ > ^^ V" ^^^ ::x '^"^:^ ss>:^ PALMETTO PICTURES Phoebea somnia. Gray :n'lnian's yoke. His head upon liis shoulders, like the rock At Stonehenge, equipoised, shakes to the shock Of energy, not age ; and there's a tone Of smothered tempest in the lisping stone, lleserved of mien, yet cun-teous and kind, Read in his face the features of his mind ; Composed as confident of m.aster-skill To wield war's bristling dragon-teeth at will, And conscious of authority as proud As auglit to which Satrapic empires bowed ; As mild and modest-m:innered as a maid, This lion in re}^(.se, so still and staid. Yet knows his mere "request" is a command That wo to auv that shall dare withstand. 20 Not more relentlessly the vine-clad rock Scatters the billow's too presumptuous shock, And rolls it startled hack upon the tide, llian he rebukes neglect and vicious pride. A just God-fearing man, on each Lord's day The simple-hearted soldier goes to pray. How poor soe'er the altar, plain the priest. The duty of the act but thus increased, And every night before he shuts his eyes He cons that volume fools alone despise. So stands the Hero at the fatal gate AVhence leaps the yelling leash of rebel hate- Hell-hounds of Slavery — back into whose womb This hunter's Hunter smites the doo^s to doom. And when at last the wounded peace is won Whose breath will clear this battle-clouded sun, A star, whose lustre the dispelling day Kight disenchanting shall not daze aw\ay, A Nation's love shall astrolate his name Who helped to blot away his Country's shame. 21 ir. And next adorned with such a wealth of lace As must confound a less heroic face, As bluff a brow and w^ell a balanced head As ever an}^ ocean prince bestead, The very elements revere his eye Of deep-withdrawn detiant mystery, And over covert like a thunder-fringe, Dark beetlino- storm-rift with a silver tinge. It is a dauntless, tempest daring front. Our ISTavy's gl^rj^, Admikal Dupont. His noble soul too throbs responsively To truth and universal liberty. Though thoughtlessly at first lie let the sin Of that dark age, now past forever, spin Its web about him — worship of a crime That had at least the guarantee of Time ; Yet when at last his faithful eye beheld The blackness of the darkness that had spelled The cotton isles, as never having dreamed The very worst could be so unredeemed. 23 Sliocked and agliast at such a loathly sight, The horror of a Moloch turned to light, He vows himself to the divhie crusade, And tlienceforth 'gainst the ld(d drew his blade. Onr [Ration's Nelson, noble his reward, Wliose guns " waltzed down " the " Twins of Beauregard," And built yon cordon round the rebel coast With white-winged frigates like a famine-ghost. No mightier marine upon the wave — Each deft to carve a Merrimac a grave. And which a storm-king could alone subdue — JVIontauk, Weehawken — let their fame renew — Patapsco, Catskill, and Nantucket bold — AVith -sveird Passaic and Nahant, all told. Nay, let the luckless Keokuk complete. With Ironsides, the most tremendous fleet That ever leaped mailed chrysalids of war. And over all Dupont their Monitor ! I saw^ them brave the veryj%nvs of hell. That time Cerberian Sumter's thunder fell, When nothing but a mail of heart sublime. Tempered by heat of a heroic time. Could brook those horrible doom-fangs of steel, Whose very shriek made the rent senses reel. 23 O Liberty ! preserve thy champion, Thank God who has restored thee to the sun. Thy years are honors that have nobly earned The respite otherwise thou wouldst have spurned, And as thou hast been true to the great cause, Not lust but liberty, not license, laws, A Puritan against tlie Cavalier, Plymouth to Beaufort, Ironsides to peer, Be thme the fame with Hunter to have stood, Thy sole ambition for thy country's good. III. This earnest face and eager eye declare A soul devoted to religions care. Saxton his title, Saxon is his stock, Son of a pioneer of Plymouth Eock. A sober, simple, unassuming man — His soiC ambition to assist the plan, To smite the despot and set free the slave, His country's life and destiny to save ; Another star, whose freedom-kindled ray Beams a reflection of the coming day ; 24 A kniglit of holiness, wlio dares to don And wield the Sword of God and Gideon ; Elect of mercy's providence divine The first ris-ht Governor of Caroline. IV Kext, for the sake of a variety, My servant — though you deem PhotogrsiiAiy Burlesqned upon a character so darJc — Yet what is human nature but a spark Of common nature, be it less or more. The lightest literature should not ignore. And whose the vision of the Oversoul, One face above another to extol ? Spirits have no complexion that I know. Though Davis and his master tell me so. At least poor Dick, though black shall yet be white, As sure as Heaven's is that purer light Wherein I fain would set a camera With lens to represent a " higher law.'* 25 And there are tales that if tliey could be told About these poor black thhigs would make you hold Your breath in admiration. What ! — ^you smile ? But tell me, do you tire to walk a mile, Upon a straight path, o'er an open plain ? And who, when asked, consents to go the '•twain"? !N"ow Dick has traversed hundreds, over fen And held, evading armed men. But you are strong and buoyant with a spring Of hope and merry fancy on the wing. And you are educated in the lore Of life, its value, this and that before, And thus are greater than yourself by all The wiser past, your future to forestall ; While Dick's gaunt body, bowed by fifty years. His very childhood but a vale of tears, Has never had a hope that was not dark, The shadow of your own — God save the mark ! And he has never learned from book that spell To ope the seven seals of miracle In life and nature, and the mystic scroll Of wierder mystery in his own soul. Yet deatldess youth — is not the hero's so ? — Aspiring wiser than itself can know, 26 Leads poor Dick's limbs, lean from a lack of food, And sapped bj labor's overtasked exude — His aged limbs, and if forsootli we count His years by trouble, double the amount — To seek he knew not what — we always know ? Yet thereby are not heroes, are we ? — so, Dick rising up flees with his fa-nily. From Focotaligo toward the sea ; For there has crept a rumor that a host Of conquering I^orthmen camp upon the coast, Before whose banner, bright with Freedom's stars. The South are cowering behind their '' bars." There shall the shackles of the bondman fall, With liberty and peace alike to all ; ' But all too weak to keep pace with the rest, A-lone, a captive back to prison prest In Charleston and thence to Secessionville, Upon the batteries, against his will Employed, he w^aits his opportunity, And robs his lords of his own liberty. Poor quaint old Dick, submissive as a child. To any kind of fortune reconciled, So full of such a curious gratitude. As if kind words were some strange, J"=i'>ious food ; 27 Unlearned, yet full of wiser charity Than most who ought to be more wise than thee — It is as strange as inspiration — why So very tender of that bitter tie Between thy tyrant master and thyself, A master whose sole deity is pelf, And with a daily incense of abuse, Of lash and lust — hell playing fast and loose — A robbed and starved and beaten sufferer. Still wilt thou thus to righteous wrath demur — *' Poor massa know'd no better ! " — Sun of God ! Returning boon for bane to kiss the rod ? Unlearned, indeed, yet Heaven only knows From whence thy soul has caught each strain and close Of many a hymn of Christian faith and hope, To each of which thy little book will ope, Keciting, " Jesus, Lover of my soul," As if thy spectacles construed tlie scroll, ALhough the volume, if turned upside down. Serves thee as well irom bottom as from crown. I see thee pore upon thy primer there Tense as if time had never touched a hair, And tireless toiling under double blur Of film and glass to pierce Truth's barrier. 28 Devoted Dick, thou art a type to me Of all thy race late called to Liberty, So tractable, and diligent, and kind, True soil of Christianity thy mind. Unlike the Indian, so prone to roam. Domestic, clinging to the humblest home. Surely thou art not vain to elevate To independent sovranty of state. That, intellective of a will divine. Love's prayerful practices must yet refine. Y. Another Skiagraphy and though they call Him by his master's title, Robert Small, Rightly by Nature's standard both to rate, But one at least is small, the other great. And though by stature small, a steady eye To ocular illusion gives the lie, And with heroic, fate-defying glance. Speaks soul superior to circumstance. 29 And Eobert, doomed to bondage from the womb, Finds life a cradle sliapen for a tomb.. The very ties of nature but a chain Of heart chords, fettered to a tangled brain. His spirit curtained, cunning tyranny, Lest some light penetrate from liberty, A vain and foolish tyrant, not to know That fi'eedom rides the very airs that blow, The very constitution of the soul A magnet instinct to its native pole. Sin-blinded confidence, itself beside, And overleaping self like suicide, Ignoring truth self-study could have taught,- Lets worldly wisdom even grow distraught. And wanders wanton through absurdity Of pride almost too vain for blasphemy, A fool, a double fool, a fool intense, A fool in God's and in the devil's sense. For so the Tempter leads the fool astray, Forever bantering but to betray, And so it chanced he did this fool deceive. The pilot Robert by himself to leave, As though the " Planter's " were a. spell so great, His wooden namesake ruled its helmsman's fate. 30 Through bristling batteries, adown the bay, The " Governor's Dispatch Boat " on its way, Un watched, unheeded, an accustomed sight, Past Johnson, Moultrie, Sumter, speeds its flight. Sleep, thunder-throated sentinels of doom ! God bids ye sleep, while from a liring tomb Your resurrected victim leaps to flight — And angels chant hosannas at the sight 1 YI The next is General Seymour's photograph,. Chief of Artillery and Chief of Staff To Hunter once, and from a noted school, That sends some heroes, now and then a fool ; One of the gallant band of Anderson, Who flamed hot protest from each throbbing gun Till stunned to see that spectacle of deai-th When Freedom's Stars descended on the heai-th Of charity and peace to bhire and start A hell of arson in the civil heart. O agony ! Yet courage. Liberty, Thy God bleeds with thee in Gothsemane> 31 And griePs a glory that must jet elate A more exceeding and eternal weight. Trust Love from wrath forever to wreak praise, Whose Father is the Ancient of Days. And teach thy champions sweet Liberty ; How to win all by losing all for thee. Teach the self-seeker, if there be profane Enough to take thy holy name in vain, The self-denying only and the pure Safely can brandish Love's Excalibar, More terrible than venom is whose spell To such as fail to vvield the weapon well. It is the Sabbath, over burning sand& Keligiously to cliurcli the contrabands Obey the summons of the little bell, Whose echoes soft across the marish well, And from their tents, beyond the grim " stock- ade," Lo, a detachment of the " Black Brigade," 32 Unarmed, approacli with military tread, In double iile, wliite leaders at their head — They halt, they open ranks, then, as is due, Each enters to his proper place and pew. Behold, resplendent in a bright array, The sable damsels celebrate the day, And rudel}^ typify, with flaunt and hue, The goi'geous tastes that tropic mind imbue, While here a patriarch with hoary fleece. Beams througli his spectacles a soul of peace, Unconscinus of the reckless urchin by, A hope unknown to grandsire in his eye. But O, most notable of all, and sad Enough to make the mildest Christian mad For vengeance on so horrible a shame To human nature and its very name, Behold her shrinking 'mong her sisters there, A maid with light hlue eyes a?id Saxoii hair ! Light on her forehead but a deeper stain Instincts without their honor, pride and pain. And white is white, and black is honest black. But this, O pitiful ! is double lack, A staring ini'am}^, a briglit disgrace, A livid loathing, where charms but deface. Curse on the crime that made again to raar^ Can such flout heaven and not flame to ^var ? 33 And who will look into this bastard's eye, And burn not to wipe out the Social Lie ? O " Chivalry," how did thy demon cheat Thee to a name that mocks with such defeat ? Doubtless the " soul of honor" shames its hearth With the most damned corruption of the earth ; Doubtless it dignifies a wife to be One leman legalized to lechery ; Doubtless it must '■' ennoble" Sons to claim Their brother's sweat, and wreak their sister's shame. O yes, accursed liar, it is well To smile like heaven, but to smell of hell I And talk of Freedom, miscreant, belie The blessed word for which the martyrs die. Your " liberty" means license — " let alone " To mock your father's grief, your grandsire's groan. But there's a Nemesis that never sleeps, A wind it sows, but like a tempest reaps. And so it fell, that on this Sabbath day Where slaves once pined, now freemen turn to pray. And as the hymn of gratitude ascends, No knee but only to its Maker bends. Nor longer worship of the cotton boll 34 Revels the fetish of the fettered soul. AbiMio, thou faithful servant of the flock, Thy Savior will not for th}^ color mock. For though we smile, Grod stoops to hear thee pray To "Alpha, Mena, and obigena," Thy spirit right, what if thj speech be not? Pure piety need not be polyglot. And there's a language in. thy look and tone That needs no lexicon but love alone. Yes, tell us of the " brazen serpent's" spell, Late from the wilderness thou teachest well. VV^hcit healed the venom of the stinging thong? O hark Gethsemane's immortal song! And nov/ when Freedom lifts her blessed sign, O tell us of her promises divine ; How often in thine agonizing prayer Was felt her spirit with th^^ spirit there, And a bright hoj)e — at last so sweetly blest! And thus forever faith shall end in rest! God grant whoever is in danger yet. His eyes upon the " brazen serpent" set, God grant religion and sweet liberty Be " lifted up," and all men to it flee. Yes, Abram Murcheson, by will left free For having nursed his master faithfully, 35 The widow and her brother burn the proof. And sell their " chattel " to a stranger's roof, Where, bruised too bitterly, lie bursts his chain. Flees from Savannah to its foes amain, And finds delight lie never knew before, Home, hope, and freedom on a foreign shore. YIII The Black Brigade forestalls the photograph Of a young Colonel U])on Hunter's staff — | The rest need not be shown — -it' sucli their kind. One representative enough to find — Who first assisted his experiment So promising at last — to which intent The General, wlien questioned, gave response In this provoking, smiling nonchalance : " 'Tis not a regiment of fugitives About which Mi*. Wickliffe's mind misgives, But men, from whom their masters fied away, Wlien loyal vengeance thundered up the bay, And thus of course entitled to pursue And to recover but their honest due. 36 Whom having been empowered here to hire With any sort of tools tliat I desire, And having found them useful with the spade, I've tlionght to try the military trade ; And find them very well adapted too, Indeed white soldiers could not better do. Besides, they're acclimated, and they know Each cunning by-path by which rebels go. In fact [ am so fully satisfied With the experiment that I have tried, I trust to soon present the Government Withj^^y times my first Black Regiment." And so each day beneath the burning sun Camp Drayton saw the Colonel's duty done, Till grateful history at last divines A lojal regiinent of Carolines. A gentle son of gentlemanly sire. This youthful Colonel is one to admire. And well illustrates the unnatural Occasion that such gentleness could call From peace, and the pursuits of civil life, To active part upon the stage of strife. And honor him for this among the van, The soldier never sinks the gentleman. Too many severed from their social ties, Don uniforms like masquerade disguise oi To ape Bombastes, as if battle sends Its heroes first to practice on their friends. I saw him once, when shattered by a fall, A comrade rode an ambulance to call. Whereat, though racked with agony intense, Yet, conscious of his gentlemanly sense, Forcing apart his pain -closed lips he spake, More mindful of politeness than his ache. — And such the nature of true courtesy. Than which I know no fairer sight to see, For 'tis a thing oi' spirit, not of sense, And sways the world to divine iniiuence. Above all else it scorns to tell a lie. And courtier, insulting mockery, "With sycophantic, sibillating grace. About the coveted purlieus of place. It shuns instinctive, with a simpler suit, As man to man alone accepts salute ; And as a man, the lowliest no less. Entitled to a complaisant address, In answer to this talismaiiic spell. Becomes himself a gentleman as well. "War, an inversion of the civil state, Warps kindly custom to a code of hate ; And grading love degrades it, saps its leaven- Bank's offence too often " smells to heaven.'' 38 And yet wherefore must a " slioiilder-strap " So tort the nature of a simple chap, That straightway in his social intercourse He must repeat the manners of his horse, And whinuey, caper, caracole and kick With airs enou;^!! to make a jockey sick ? War lias no virtue if it do not start A. better circulation of the heart, Phlebotomize conceit and flay the fool. And put first principles again to school. When crime and vanity are driveu hence. The code of war must yield to common sense. And " man and brother," grown a settled phrase. Shall banish military popinjays. For war, unnatural, disorders life, Electrifies all elements to strife, Unsettles thought, excites destructiveness. Good never, though it be the evil less, God haste the time wlien gallowserqft shall cease. With all insignia of sin-disease, And souls of gentle insthict nn molest May radiate upon a spliere of rest. And yet, however we shall war lament- — The sad necessity wlierefor 'tis sent — Eight where it seems to end again begun, Heaven breeds honey in the skeleton. 39 For what a wealtli of nobleness is found When Hate's artesian auger bores the ground To tlie mysterious teeming arteries, Whose fountains are the everlasting seas ! Through drouth and dearth of long prosperity The very continents grown parched and dry, And ah, tlie summits that are sun-kist most The first to prove their springs of passion lost. And faith and fortitude in last despair, Tlieir hope exhaling in tlie burning air — Smite with thy steel, O Prophet of the Time ! The world's foundation to its deep sublime. And prove that evermore beneath the crust The will of God's a never-failing trust ! For well was heroism said to be Akin to heavenly philanthropy.* Tlie trump of Mars, a i-esurrective spell. Evokes the worldling from his foetid cell, And noisome silk-worms, from the pents of pelf, Like chrysalises from cocoons of self. Instinct returns into the hearts of men. And slighted truth into regard again. The lying court no longer cheat and rail, For Arthur's up and hunts the Holy Grail! ♦ Shaftesbury. 40 O let the youth into whose hands shall fall The State their sires are bleeding to install, Remember to avoid the errors rife That wrecked our quiet and betrayed to strife ; Nov longer let the principled and just Shirk Freedom's duties and the Public Trust. For can they rightly judge the ballot-box Whose " fraud " but their own recreancy mocks, Who ought at least have leavened with their own, Truth and devoted spirit to atone ? For " universal franchise " needs to be, Indeed must U7iiversal to hef^'ee / And leave the ballot to the " baser sort," Of course its liberty will prove abort, For " primary elections rule the state " — Tlien go yourself — chicanery checkmate ! The good forever is the stronger part If but its friends will take it unto heart, And note the lesson of the fabled frog Who fretted self control into a log. The " Genius of Humanity " is best, And Heavenward " Destiny " is " manifest." But when the tumult of the war is done. And Freedom's blood with fresher pulse shall run, 41 Homesick for peace society si i all start A nobler energy of mind and heart. Lo spirits melted in the furnace blast Shall straightway into better moulds be cast, The arts of war shall yield to arts of peace, And all reviving hail a glad release ; The Church shall brush the cobwebs from the pyx, The State shall jjurify its politics, Truth shall return with a distincter gleam, The dream millennium seem less a dream. The Nation, taught by suffering to know Itself, true charity receive and show ; And triends of Freedom throughout all the earth, Shall cry all hail to the Kew Era's birth, When Slavery, the body of a death, Xo more shall sap a generous nation's breath ; Again that spectacle, with lustre new. To startle time, with its example true. Of how a State can work its joints to ply All offices in perfect sympathy. The general and local interest In perfect complement together blest, A series of concurrent sovereignty. Town, County, State, Briarean Unity, Expanding wide a multiple of power, 42 With love-tipt fingers, brightest boon to shower On all alike, white, black, and shades between — The mystic stone is found, the Golden Mean ! Battles are not the crises that divine — Defeat nor triumph — the dividing line. Where ought the problems of the typic strife Between the Periwig and Roundhead rife, Be solved if not upon the very spot Where first the Cavalier transfers his lot Of oligarchic feudal polity ; Ofi*shoot of effete aristocracy Pitted against the seed of Plymouth Rock, The Code of love against the Code of Locke, Freedom and Slavery in one last embrace, And fatal death-grip gasping face to face? Where ought we to expect to find the slave First resurrected from his living grave, And taught to arm himself in self-defence, And educated to the novel sense Of liberty to know his ecpial right, Thouo'h blackest black with whitest of the white But where the grateful friend of freedom saw The bondman's right just claimed by "Martial law"— That match that lighted the Columbiad, A '' proclamation " for its cannon -wad — 43 Next heard that watchword spoken from the heart Of contest — " arm the blacks"— an echo start Quick at whose sound, the countr}^ leaps to aid. Brigade succeeding everywhere brigade. ISTay, still the negro's right to equal place Obstructed as of an inferior race, Thwarted and cheated in his humblest claims, In vain to talk to him of higher aims, For thirty days, lo here, the armed patrol \¥ith drums parade a culprit with tliis scroll — Eead. — " This man has been mean enough to steal ^ A negro's pittance" — notable appeal I Down prejudice, and patriot for shame ! Is freedom Justice or an empty name? Again — a ship from Ancient Augustine, With parasitic spitfires, full of spleen. Distilled from army rations, venomed drones. You give them bread, get serpents, fislies stones. '^ Send them across the lines " and cut them off — What feed at our expense at whom they scoff! The rotten reeking animalculae And vermin ed vinegar of Slavery ! Yes, let the President, with smooth salaam, Present the South its own Yallandigham, The " Copperhead " to mate the "rattle snake," 44 Together destined for tlie burning lake. Tlie ghastly prodigies of double dearth Wreathing the camp and writliing on the hearth — Scotch them and out upon the maudlin tear W-oiild di-ip upon a double Traitor^s Mer ! God grant it be impossible this strife Can cease till Slavery yields its life. Better the springs run crimson to the sea Draining each drop from every artery Of treason, better pnrse and pulse be sapped, Than Inst in love be any^lon^^^er lapt. Down witli the *' Peace Partj^" — let no truce be To truculent intrusive treachery, And let all earne-t youth kiiit heart and brain For Gixl and Freedom till the Foe is slain. Lastly this letter tVom that General Of freedom's friends the first and last of all ; '* Davis, our banner guards both white and black. For each then that you slay or fetter back To bondage, worse a thousand fold than death, Yours man for man, shall answer with a breath. And God shall put u;:on your guilty head The dreadful burden of the blood thus shed. 45 Again you say the white men we employ To arm the blacks your vengeance shall destroy. You've pondered on this folly long enough, And now I say to you, retract this stuff, Or every rebel officer and wretch Claiming a slave that I hereafter catch, Shall hang. So Providence designs to prick Its sleeping friends and rouse them to tlie quick. Who fights for freedom in the truest sense. Is he who fights in. his own self-defence, A cause that man whose name yo%b falsely bear Great Jefferson so greatly could declare — "No attribute of God can countervail. And who fights freedom doth God's throne as- sail," But you, forsooth, you fight for '' freedom," too ? Oh yes, to bind four millions in a slough Of degradation — liberty to part Parent and child, and break a mother's henrt, To steal her sweat and lash it to make more, Yes, liberty to use her for a whore — And, damnedest crime before or since the flood, l!^ext barter from the block your flesh and blood — ifsTay, liberty to take your bastard's life Without white testimony to your knife. 46 Siicli libei-ty, the libLMty of Ilell, The first Great Traitor foug'lit for — and he fell ! 1 have the honor, sir, with such intent To sign myself yonr most obedient.'' Like Luther's " kan nieht ancle r " to tlieSee Such words are mightier than victory. God help him, and God help the world to aid Tiie last " Mayflower" seed from Upas shade. Wliere strife began, and where the tempest rose. Here at the last its wild career will close, Bi'inging a time when this bright land shall be The lasting summer liome of liberty, Where beauty, never beauty without soul, The gayest blossom without odor-dole^ The Rose of Beaufort shall wear double spell. And freedom's fragance sweet about it dwell, And L'»ve and Beauty so united be, Twice beautiful and \oYQ\y— Liberty ! 47 IX Wlien " Hilton Head " was cleft from Pinck- ney's Isle, Making tlie severed ^' Head " a skull to style, ^he stream that severed it thereby became " Skull Creek," and still to-day retains the name — Across which and above yon rocky shoal — You see it wliere the billows whiter roll — Once stood a stately mansion, wreathed around With laurel, oak, magnolia, blossom-ci'owned, Orange, palmetto, cedar, '' sailing pine," Afar reflected m the conscious brine, While rose and lily and a thousand blooms Of rare and tropic birth distilled perfumes, And fairer still this fair-girt home within. Teeming Avith every delight to win To ease and art — rare pictures, books and more, The secrets of tlie laboratory's store, Wliere Alchemy could chase the wizard themes Of her alembic and alcanor dreams — Lo ! here a hero of our Nation's first 48 Great Revolution vividly rehearsed Such thrilling tales as one alone could tell Who had himself his stories shared so well — A war for Freedom — reckless all the while About him reeked a bondage twice as vile ! 'Twas night — September — when an awful gale, Such as is wont these regions to assail, With hiss and crash, and wild tornado-rush Of God's breath, gorged Avith a sea-drunken gush Of sky, blind-staggering midst shrieking spoom. Whelms garden, grove, and mansion in a doom Of deluge, swallowing tlie very ground Beneath tli^m — nothino- in the mornino^ found Of all that ravishment of luxury But a wild revehy of mocking sea. Proud Soutln-ou, thus was all thy glory vain Only to dignify a prophet's strain — Shall man vaunt liberty to wield the rod,. Blaspheme the image and the soul of God ? Behold he answers, wild tornados strew The sea with wrecks — '^ His whirlwinds answer iTo /" But reckless even yet behold a blast Of wilder wrath over the wa^etch has past. And one day as I rode, what should I find 49 But this old father and his son stone blind, Tattered and lean, and with a broken will Too weak for labor grinding at the mill. " Who loves thee ?" " I^o one,'' answering for- lorn, " I'm good for nothing but to grind the corn." Charles Cotesw^orth Pinckney, Heaven be thy Judge, These thine own victims bore to thee no grudge, Yet thou hadst robbed them, mocking liberty — From Ahrahavvs losom now they pity thee ! X. MiTCHEL, I may not look upon thy light, Mine is no camera thy ray to unite. Doubly devoted, who could doubt the love That called thee from thy converse there above To stifle in this atmosphere of earth, Empjn-ean inclining to our dearth ? The stars of God are thine, how couldst thou then Be thought to emulate the stars of men ? 50 lN"ay, tlioii thyself our gift to glorify, On tri vailing our generosity, Quick at thy country's peril, noble heart, In freedom's sky to take a higher part, Behold, thy fame shall "bum forever bright In two skies, earth's and liberty's, the light Of one, indeed, scroll-like to roll away, The other brighter to the Golden Day, But when ad astra man his best had given, Lo, God set thee 'mong stars of heaven And behold where the bright lustre paled. Behold the spot where MitcJiel's soul exhaled, Wafted aloft upon the grateful prayers Of poor men sweeter tlian Elysian airs. Wise soul and kind, a genius full of love, The "genius loci" of his birth above. His liberty, with justly-balanced mind. But slavery till shared by all mankind, Enrolled among the noble table round Of our great Honest Arthur, truth-renowned, Atilt against old prejudice in mail He rode to ransom Freedom's Holy Grail. Let yonder village still repeat his name, Who dared too, to be just to humbler claim Of higher law than custom's " simple fee," Just to the Equity of Equity. 51 How could'st thou die ! yet not for tliee I weep. But for mv country, that it could not keep The star of Mitcliel for a guiding light, Through its long black and disappointful night. XI What more ? the Mecca of the artist found. Behold at last the Soldiers' Burying Ground. How thick tliey lie ! O thus must fields be sown. With rich seeds of the Mayflower tempest-blo^vri ? Has Heaven ordained the choicest seed to die— The mortal to don immortality ; The carnal to enricli thus first decay To breed a new and nobler from the clay. And so forever blood of martyrs be The only seed of blissful Liberty ? Hail to the mystery of Bethlehem, Tlie Red Cross of the ITew Jerusalem ! The Eed Cross, the Red Cross, spectre of flame. Flash over the people a ghost of their shame ! 52 Ye seeds of the blood that once weltered your manor With- martyr-stams still fresh on time's proud- est banner, By shuddering Lemur of Lexington, By Bunker Hill's deathlessly pealing gun , By barefooted-bloody tracked Yalley Forge, By gibbering graves in the mountain gorge, By horns of the altar that sacredly looms To king-hunted peoples from patriot tombs. By liberty's passion and liberty's prayer, By hope, and the holier rite of despair. By guerdon of triumph, the guidon of time. Up, rescue the prize of the past, from a crime That seeks to betray your Excalibur brand From Liberty's office to Slavery's hand, Till Liberty's day-star, once Morn's beacon- light. Like Lucifer sink to an omen of night. The Red Cross, the Red Cross, spectre, in flame. My people to vengeance, the vengeance of shame ! Be this still the prayer of the patriot chief, The glory of God, whatever man's grief ; 53 And breatlie over camp, over court, and keep pure The warrior from luit and the statesman from lure. Great God! bj the sweat of Getliseniane's pang, The shriek of the wrong that from Calvary rang. The Red Cross, the Red Cross, that rapturous sign That ever humanitj^'s throe is divine, From patriot eepulclires Freedom must rise. Redeemer of J^ations and Guide to the Skies ! Down with the wretch who cries that Washington Is dead, who will not see great Jefferson Still loom sublime upon the deck of state, By self-denial daring to be great ! 1^0, they are dead whose souls no longer thrill To tlie grand impulse of that God-like will, Who, battle-scarred and stained with bloody sweat, A halo of proud tears about him set. When fondly palpitating gratitude Prayed yet the boon to crown that loftihood 54 With angel-inspiration blest that crown By giving back to each who gave, his own ! Aye, king of kings be he who taught his kind The noblest empire is the self-ruled mind. And, that divinest truth till then unknown, Tiiat Love is king, and Honor is his throne, — Who carved the lines for 'New Jerusalem, Each tower a temple and each stone a gem ! O, noblest polity since time began, Christ to the State, Immanuel to man, Messiah-Union, God be still thy Guide, And every martyred angel on thy side. Thou caiist not die, for lorn can never die^ Blood of oior God^ lodij of Liherty ! XII. PANTOGRAPH Y. A Land of great first principles, a Goal Where Nature's laws are on their grandest scale. Twin mountain dykes defend one mighty vale. 55 Veined over with the vastest floods that roll Into the teeming tropic from the pole, Debris of ploughshare and of golden schale. And where the educated past repairs, From every tongue and people, sphere and clime,. To wed the future and beget the heirs Of all the glory of the coming time. That proudly lifts its portico sublime. The royal destiny of him who dares Be true to God and serve Him in affairs ! filjj ©alt. Magnificent tree, Over inountaiii and sea, Sole monarch, the forests of each thy dominion, Those that wave their tops With a fondage of ropes, And those, whose proud spars stem the coast Car- olinian. Let the tempest rave, Thou art mighty to save, Tlie trepidant voyager trusting to thee. And bending thine arm. Dost buo}^ from harm, Him breasting the billowy, bellowing sea. 57 Thou bindest the shores Of the Hyperbores To the radient zone of the teeming Equator, And like an Afrite Of the Arabian Night, Bestridest the hurricane over the water. O magical tree, There's no winter for thee, Never Boreal Sorcery blistered thy sheen, All the weather-cock year Thine unchangeable cheer Over shadow and shine, grass and glacier, green. Representative tree. Ever typical be Of the soul and the spirit that quickens creation, Plant of deity, Lone liberty tree, Leal Evergreen Oak, live American Nation I i E I m e 1 1 . Sing to the wide Palmetto's pride, The boasf of the Southern banner Evergreen blade Over glebe and glade The hope of the sunny manor. Proof to the gale Is its plaited mail, And its sinewy armor under, Mightily twist, Its fibres to tryst. With the shock of the battle's thunder. 59 For on a tide^ When liberticidej The right of the freeman had smitten^ Moultrie's grim maw, Oped his palmetto jaw, And swallowed the bolt of the Briton* Then to the blade Kever sun or shade, Dims sing to the weird magician^ Endogen, lone Tj^pe of ages gone, Elixir- veined J lord patrician. Obsolete forms, Millennial storms, The shades of the Upas shall sever. But wave the sheen Of tliis Evergreen, Trice Ckivaln/s emblem forever ! Pai|it0liiu Thejre is a blossom in the Southern laud. Majestic as the cadence of the Latin. Companion of the oak its branches stand, And its proud patines the serenest satin. A spirit hallowing the amber night, And softly answering the summer's kisses. Its blossoms, each another satellite, lieply to multiply Diana's blisses. Sweet orange, white rose, rare camelia, And splendid water-lily, all together 61 Dissolved in crystal of Castalia, And tinct with snow-drops from the yernal heather, Qnintescent, exquisite Magnolia, Sweet heart of sweetness to a brain of splendor The glory of bright Flora's milky way, Magnihcence deliriously tender, Thou art the prototype of a proud time That even now mounts stained with blood from Edom, To crown Earth's bloom with the celestial clime Of the millennial Igdrasil of Freedom, Mater Kosarum. Geay. Motlier of Roses, delicate airs delight Favonian, nay Venus herself attend Thee glowing, choirs of ocean elves and Caroly birds celebrate thy beauty. Sweet Koses of Beaufort, I pass away. But your bloom from my spirit can pass away never, A boon that is better than laurel bay, A love that will live an elixir forever, For borne on your pinions a spirit of peace Flitted breathing a promise of feverless bowers, Where passion and pain find immortal release, And the Hose hides no thorn under canker! ess flowers. Where all is delight, and the orange and vine Yie sweetly yet vainly together, where never The moons never wane, and the suns ever shine Upon verdure an^l blossom and fruitage forever. 66 And souls of the past at your magic began Over every page of ray volume to hover, I listened again to the piping of Pan" And the bees again humming in Helicon's clo- ver. And sages of eld, your transfiguring love To my vision revealed in a vista of glory, Till fondly to foster the fancies you wove, I trusted your sweet Rosicrucian story, And slumbering, dreamed that the Hose was a Queen, And her darling dominion an Isle of Apollo, When Dryope leaped from her column of green. In your train at the spell of his tortoise to fol- low. Then roused but to glide into vision again, I saw Prospero's Isle and its Spirit of Beauty, The angels rewarding whose kindness to men Had changed to a Hose, sweetly sealing its duty. 67 And who will deny tliat tlie Rose is a soul, For its purity, grace for its love and its power. Commissioned to Earth, sent to tempt to the goal And to scatter the desert with heavenly flower ? Sweet Roses of Beaufort, the whirUvind of war. And tornado of battle now bursting around God loving his own sweetly anchors afar, Never bolt of the blistering thunder to wound you. For Heaven avenging the Bowers of Peace, From Eden polluting rebellion hath driven. And flaming around waves His symbol that frees From the Serpent forever the Roses of Heaven ! ^^^^ ^'^^-^1'~— ^ ^ >^^^ IliwJ fy^'^o^:. # w ^^ mrM ^f^-s;-— =^ir^->^^ Ti^V ^i^>:*'^ I7J ^^SJ TO W^^-UJJ^ O 3!b