Then fold about thy beauteous form
The imperial robe thou wearest,
And front with regal port the storm
Thy foe would dream thou fearest;
If strength, and will, and courage fail
To cope with ruthless numbers,
And thou must bend, despairing, pale,
Where thy last hero slumbers,
Lift the red torch, and light the fire
Amid those corpses gory,
And on thy self-made funeral pyre,
Pass from the world to glory.
Paul Hamilton Hayne.
The cotton in the town was burned, many houses caught fire, and a magazine exploded, killing two hundred people. The city was virtually a ruin when the last of the Confederate troops—"poor old Dixie's bottom dollar"—left the city.
ROMANCE
"Talk of pluck!" pursued the Sailor,
Set at euchre on his elbow,
"I was on the wharf at Charleston,
Just ashore from off the runner.
"It was gray and dirty weather,
And I heard a drum go rolling,
Rub-a-dubbing in the distance,
Awful dour-like and defiant.
"In and out among the cotton,
Mud, and chains, and stores, and anchors,
Tramped a squad of battered scarecrows—
Poor old Dixie's bottom dollar!
"Some had shoes, but all had rifles,
Them that wasn't bald was beardless,
And the drum was rolling 'Dixie,'
And they stepped to it like men, sir!
"Rags and tatters, belts and bayonets,
On they swung, the drum a-rolling,
Mum and sour. It looked like fighting,
And they meant it too, by thunder!"
William Ernest Henley.