Virginia to Winfield Scott.
A voice is heard in Ramah!
High sounds are on the gale!
Notes to wake buried patriots!
Notes to strike traitors pale!
Wild notes of outraged feeling
Cry aloud and spare him not!
'Tis Virginia's strong appealing,
And she calls to Winfield Scott!
Oh! chief among ten thousand!
Thou whom I loved so well,
Star that has set, as never yet
Since son of morning fell!
I call not in reviling,
Nor to speak thee what thou art;
I leave thee to thy death-bed,
And I leave thee to thy heart!
But by every mortal hope,
And by every mortal fear;
By all that man deems sacred,
And that woman holds most dear;
Yea! by thy mother's honor,
And by thy father's grave,
By hell beneath, and heaven above,
Give back the sword I gave!
Not since God's sword was planted
To guard life's heavenly tree,
Has ever blade been granted,
Like that bestowed on thee!
To pierce me with the steel I gave
To guard mine honor's shrine,
Not since Iscariot lived and died,
Was treason like to thine!
Give back the sword! and sever
Our strong and mighty tie!
We part, and part forever,
To conquer or to die!
In sorrow, not in anger,
I speak the word, "We part!"
For I leave thee to thy death-bed,
And I leave thee to thy heart!
Richmond Whig.
Nay, Keep the Sword.
By Carrie Clifford.
Nay, keep the sword which once we gave,
A token of our trust in thee;
The steel is true, the blade is keen--
False as thou art it cannot be.
We hailed thee as our glorious chief,
With laurel-wreaths we bound thy brow;
Thy name then thrilled from tongue to tongue:
In whispers hushed we breathe it now.
Yes, keep it till thy dying day;
Momentous ever let it be,
Of a great treasure once possessed--
A people's love now lost to thee.
Thy mother will not bow her head;
She bares her bosom to thee now;
But may the bright steel fail to wound--
It is more merciful than thou.
And ere thou strik'st the fatal blow,
Thousands of sons of this fair land
Will rise, and, in their anger just,
Will stay the rash act of thy hand.
And when in terror thou shalt hear
Thy murderous deeds of vengeance cry
And feel the weight of thy great crime,
Then fall upon thy sword and die.
Those aged locks I'll not reproach,
Although upon a traitor's brow;
We've looked with reverence on them once,
We'll try and not revile them now.
But her true sons and daughters pray,
That ere thy day of reckoning be,
Thy ingrate heart may feel the pain
To know thy mother once more free.
Coercion: A Poem for Then and Now.
By John R. Thompson, of Virginia.
Who talks of coercion? who dares to deny
A resolute people the right to be free?
Let him blot out forever one star from the sky,
Or curb with his fetter the wave of the sea!
Who prates of coercion? Can love be restored
To bosoms where only resentment may dwell?
Can peace upon earth be proclaimed by the sword,
Or good-will among men be established by shell?
Shame! shame!--that the statesman and trickster, forsooth,
Should have for a crisis no other recourse,
Beneath the fair day-spring of light and of truth,
Than the old brutum fulmen of tyranny--force!
From the holes where fraud, falsehood, and hate slink away--
From the crypt in which error lies buried in chains--
This foul apparition stalks forth to the day,
And would ravage the land which his presence profanes.
Could you conquer us, men of the North--could you bring
Desolation and death on our homes as a flood--
Can you hope the pure lily, affection, will spring
From ashes all reeking and sodden with blood?
Could you brand us as villains and serfs, know ye not
What fierce, sullen hatred lurks under the scar?
How loyal to Hapsburg is Venice, I wot!
How dearly the Pole loves his father, the Czar!
But 'twere well to remember this land of the sun
Is a nutrix leonum, and suckles a race
Strong-armed, lion-hearted, and banded as one,
Who brook not oppression and know not disgrace.
And well may the schemers in office beware
The swift retribution that waits upon crime,
When the lion, RESISTANCE, shall leap from his lair,
With a fury that renders his vengeance sublime.
Once, men of the North, we were brothers, and still,
Though brothers no more, we would gladly be friends;
Nor join in a conflict accursed, that must fill
With ruin, the country on which it descends.
But, if smitten with blindness, and mad with the rage
The gods gave to all whom they wished to destroy,
You would act a new Iliad, to darken the age
With horrors beyond what is told us of Troy--
If, deaf as the adder itself to the cries,
When wisdom, humanity, justice implore,
You would have our proud eagle to feed on the eyes
Of those who have taught him so grandly to soar--
If there be to your malice no limit imposed,
And you purpose hereafter to rule with the rod
The men upon whom you already have closed
Our goodly domain and the temples of God:
To the breeze then your banner dishonored unfold,
And, at once, let the tocsin be sounded afar;
We greet you, as greeted the Swiss, Charles the Bold--
With a farewell to peace and a welcome to war!
For the courage that clings to our soil, ever bright,
Shall catch inspiration from turf and from tide;
Our sons unappalled shall go forth to the fight,
With the smile of the fair, the pure kiss of the bride;
And the bugle its echoes shall send through the past,
In the trenches of Yorktown to waken the slain;
While the sod of King's Mountain shall heave at the blast,
And give up its heroes to glory again.
A Cry to Arms.
By Henry Timrod.
Ho! woodsmen of the mountain-side!
Ho! dwellers in the vales!
Ho! ye who by the chafing tide
Have roughened in the gales!
Leave barn and byre, leave kin and cot,
Lay by the bloodless spade;
Let desk, and case, and counter rot,
And burn your books of trade.
The despot roves your fairest lands;
And till he flies or fears,
Your fields must grow but armed bands,
Your sheaves be sheaves of spears!
Give up to mildew and to rust
The useless tools of gain;
And feed your country's sacred dust
With floods of crimson rain!
Come, with the weapons at your call--
With musket, pike, or knife;
He wields the deadliest blade of all
Who lightest holds his life.
The arm that drives its unbought blows
With all a patriot's scorn,
Might brain a tyrant with a rose,
Or stab him with a thorn.
Does any falter? let him turn
To some brave maiden's eyes,
And catch the holy fires that burn
In those sublunar skies.
Oh! could you like your women feel,
And in their spirit march,
A day might see your lines of steel
Beneath the victor's arch.
What hope, O God! would not grow warm
When thoughts like these give cheer?
The lily calmly braves the storm,
And shall the palm-tree fear?
No! rather let its branches court
The rack that sweeps the plain;
And from the lily's regal port
Learn how to breast the strain!
Ho! woodsmen of the mountain-side!
Ho! dwellers in the vales!
Ho! ye who by the roaring tide
Have roughened in the gales!
Come! flocking gayly to the fight
From forest, hill, and lake;
We battle for our country's right,
And for the lily's sake!
Jackson, The Alexandria Martyr.
By Wm. H. Holcombe, M.D., of Virginia.
'Twas not the private insult galled him most,
But public outrage of his country's flag,
To which his patriotic heart had pledged
Its faith as to a bride. The bold, proud chief,
Th' avenging host, and the swift-coming death
Appalled him not. Nor life with all its charms,
Nor home, nor wife, nor children could weigh down
The fierce, heroic instincts to destroy
The insolent invader. Ellsworth fell,
And Jackson perished 'mid the pack of wolves,
Befriended only by his own great heart
And God approving. More than Roman soul!
O type of our impetuous chivalry!
May this young nation ever boast her sons
A vast, and inconceivable multitude,
Standing like thee in her extremest van,
Self-poised and ready, in defence of rights
Or in revenge of wrongs, to dare and die!
The Martyr of Alexandria.
By James W. Simmons, of Texas.
Revealed, as in a lightning flash,
A hero stood!
The invading foe, the trumpet's crash,
Set up his blood.
High o'er the sacred pile that bends
Those forms above,
Thy star, O Freedom! brightly blends
Its rays with love.
The banner of a mighty race,
Serenely there,
Unfurls the genius of the place,
In haunted air.
A vow is registered in Heaven!
Patriot! 'tis thine!
To guard those matchless colors, given
By hands divine.
Jackson! thy spirit may not hear
Our wail ascend;
A nation gathers round thy bier,
And mourns its friend.
The example is thy monument,
And organ tones
Thy name resound, with glory blent,
Prouder than thrones!
And they whose loss hath been our gain,
A people's cares
Shall win their wounded hearts from pain,
And wipe their tears.
When time shall set the captives free,
Now scathed by wrath,
Heirs of his immortality,
Bright be their path.
The Blessed Union--Epigram.
Doubtless to some, with length of ears,
To gratify an ape's desire,
The blessed Union still endears;--
The stripes, if not the stars, be theirs!
"Greek faith" they gave us eighty years,
And then--"Greek fire!"
But, better all their fires of scath
Than one hour's trust in Yankee faith!
The Fire of Freedom.
The holy fire that nerved the Greek
To make his stand at Marathon,
Until the last red foeman's shriek
Proclaimed that freedom's fight was won,
Still lives unquenched--unquenchable:
Through every age its fires will burn--
Lives in the hermit's lonely cell,
And springs from every storied urn.
The hearthstone embers hold the spark
Where fell oppression's foot hath trod;
Through superstition's shadow dark
It flashes to the living God!
From Moscow's ashes springs the Russ;
In Warsaw, Poland lives again:
Schamyl, on frosty Caucasus,
Strikes liberty's electric chain!
Tell's freedom-beacon lights the Swiss;
Vainly the invader ever strives;
He finds Sic Semper Tyrannis
In San Jacinto's bowie-knives!
Than these--than all--a holier fire
Now burns thy soul, Virginia's son!
Strike then for wife, babe, gray-haired sire,
Strike for the grave of Washington!
The Northern rabble arms for greed;
The hireling parson goads the train--
In that foul crop from, bigot seed,
Old "Praise God Barebones" howls again!
We welcome them to "Southern lands,"
We welcome them to "Southern slaves,"
We welcome them "with bloody hands
To hospitable Southern graves!"
Hymn to the National Flag.
By Mrs. M. J. Preston.
Float aloft, thou stainless banner!
Azure cross and field of light;
Be thy brilliant stars the symbol
Of the pure and true and right.
Shelter freedom's holy cause--
Liberty and sacred laws;
Guard the youngest of the nations--
Keep her virgin honor bright.
From Virginia's storied border,
Down to Tampa's furthest shore--
From the blue Atlantic's clashings
To the Rio Grande's roar--
Over many a crimson plain,
Where our martyred ones lie slain--
Fling abroad thy blessed shelter,
Stream and mount and valley o'er.
In thy cross of heavenly azure
Has our faith its emblem high;
In thy field of white, the hallow'd
Truth for which we'll dare and die;
In thy red, the patriot blood--
Ah! the consecrated flood.
Lift thyself, resistless banner!
Ever fill our Southern sky!
Flash with living, lightning motion
In the sight of all the brave!
Tell the price at which we purchased
Room and right for thee to wave
Freely in our God's free air,
Pure and proud and stainless fair,
Banner of the youngest nation--
Banner we would die to save!
Strike Thou for us! King of armies!
Grant us room in Thy broad world!
Loosen all the despot's fetters,
Back be all his legions hurled!
Give us peace and liberty,
Let the land we love be free--
Then, oh! bright and stainless banner!
Never shall thy folds be furled!