Walker Meriwether Bell.
It was for the South a sad awakening from the dream which had been so entrancing and which seemed so certain to come true. Their land was ravaged, their people were ruined, their best and bravest dead.
IN THE LAND WHERE WE WERE DREAMING
Fair were our visions! Oh, they were as grand
As ever floated out of faerie land;
Children were we in single faith,
But God-like children, whom nor death
Nor threat nor danger drove from honor's path,
In the land where we were dreaming.
Proud were our men, as pride of birth could render;
As violets, our women pure and tender;
And when they spoke, their voices did thrill
Until at eve the whip-poor-will,
At morn the mocking-bird, were mute and still,
In the land where we were dreaming.
And we had graves that covered more of glory
Than ever tracked tradition's ancient story;
And in our dream we wove the thread
Of principles for which had bled
And suffered long our own immortal dead,
In the land where we were dreaming.
Though in our land we had both bond and free,
Both were content; and so God let them be;
Till envy coveted our land,
And those fair fields our valor won;
But little recked we, for we still slept on,
In the land where we were dreaming.
Our sleep grew troubled and our dreams grew wild—
Red meteors flashed across our heaven's field;
Crimson the moon; between the Twins
Barbed arrows fly, and then begins
Such strife as when disorder's Chaos reigns,
In the land where we were dreaming.
Down from her sun-lit heights smiled Liberty
And waved her cap in sign of Victory—
The world approved, and everywhere,
Except where growled the Russian bear,
The good, the brave, the just gave us their prayer
In the land where we were dreaming.