ETHNOGENESIS.
| I. |
Hath not the morning dawned with added light?
And will not evening call another star
Out of the infinite regions of the night,
To mark this day in heaven? At last we are
A nation among nations; and the world
Shall soon behold in many a distant part
Another flag unfurled!
Now, come what may, whose favor need we court?
And, under God, whose thunder need we fear?
Thank him who placed us here
Beneath so kind a sky—the very sun
Takes part with us; and on our errands run
All breezes of the ocean; dew and rain
Do noiseless battle for us; and the year
And all the gentle daughters in her train
March in our ranks, and in our service wield
Long spears of golden grain!
A yellow blossom as her fairy shield
June flings our azure banner to the wind,
While in the order of their birth
Her sisters pass, and many an ample field
Grows white beneath their steps, till now behold
Its endless sheets unfold
The snow of Southern summers! Let the earth
Rejoice! beneath those fleeces soft and warm
Our happy land shall sleep
In a repose as deep
As if we lay intrenched behind
Whole leagues of Russian ice and Arctic storm! |
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| II. |
And what, if mad with wrongs themselves have wrought,
In their own treachery caught,
By their own fears made bold,
And leagued with him of old,
Who long since in the limits of the North
Set up his evil throne, and warred with God—
What if, both mad and blinded in their rage,
Our foes should fling us down their mortal gage,
And with a hostile step profane our sod!
We shall not shrink, my brothers, but go forth
To meet them, marshaled by the Lord of Hosts,
And overshadowed by the mighty ghosts
Of Moultrie and of Eutaw—who shall foil
Auxiliars such as these? Nor these alone,
But every stock and stone
Shall help us; but the very soil,
And all the generous wealth it gives to toil,
And all for which we love our noble land,
Shall fight beside, and through us, sea and strand,
The heart of woman, and her hand,
Tree, fruit, and flower, and every influence
Gentle or grave or grand.
The winds in our defense
Shall seem to blow; to us the hills shall lend
Their firmness and their calm;
And in our stiffened sinews we shall blend
The strength of pine and palm! |
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| III. |
Look where we will, we can not find a ground
For any mournful song:
Call up the clashing elements around,
And test the right and wrong!
On one side, pledges broken, creeds that lie,
Religion sunk in vague philosophy,
Empty professions, pharisaic leaven,
Souls that would sell their birthright in the sky,
Philanthropists who pass the beggar by,
And laws which controvert the laws of Heaven.
And, on the other—first, a righteous cause!
Then, honor without flaws,
Truth, Bible reverence, charitable wealth,
And for the poor and humble, laws which give,
Not the mean right to buy the right to live,
But life, and home, and health.
To doubt the issue were distrust in God!
If in his Providence he hath decreed
That to the peace for which we pray,
Through the Red Sea of War must lie our way,
Doubt not, O brothers, we shall find at need
A Moses with his rod! |
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| IV. |
But let our fears—if fears we have—be still,
And turn us to the future! Could we climb
Some Alp in thought, and view the coming time,
We should indeed behold a sight to fill
Our eyes with happy tears!
Not for the glories which a hundred years
Shall bring us; not for lands from sea to sea,
And wealth, and power, and peace, though these shall be;
But for the distant peoples we shall bless,
And the hushed murmurs of a world’s distress:
For, to give food and clothing to the poor,
The whole sad planet o’er,
And save from crime its humblest human door,
Our mission is! The hour is not yet ripe
When all shall see it, but behold the type
Of what we are and shall be to the world,
In our own grand and genial Gulf stream furled,
Which through the vast and colder ocean pours
Its waters, so that far-off Arctic shores
May sometimes catch upon the softened breeze
Strange tropic warmth and hints of summer seas. |
THE SOUTHERN CROSS.
BY ST. GEORGE TUCKER.
Oh, say, can you see, through the gloom and the storm,
More bright for the darkness, that pure constellation?
Like the symbol of love and redemption its form,
As it points to the haven of hope for the nation.
How radiant, each star, as the beacon afar,
Giving promise of peace, or assurance in war;
’Tis the Cross of the South, which shall ever remain,
To light us to Freedom and Glory again!
How peaceful and blest was America’s soil,
Till betrayed by the guile of the Puritan demon,
Which lurks under virtue, and springs from its coil
To fasten its fangs in the life-blood of freemen.
Then loudly appeal, to each heart that can feel,
And crush the foul viper ’neath Liberty’s heel!
And the Cross of the South shall forever remain,
To light us to Freedom and Glory again!
’Tis the emblem of peace, ’tis the day-star of hope,
Like the sacred Labarum, which guided the Roman;
From the shores of the Gulf to the Delaware’s slope,
’Tis the trust of the free, and the terror of foemen.
Fling its folds to the air, while we boldly declare
The rights we demand, or the deeds that we dare;
And the Cross of the South shall forever remain,
To light us to Freedom and Glory again!
But if peace should be hopeless, and justice denied,
And war’s bloody vulture should flap his black pinions,
Then gladly to arms! while we hurl in our pride,
Defiance to tyrants, and death to their minions,
With our front to the field, swearing never to yield,
Or return, like the Spartan, in death on our shield;
And the Cross of the South shall triumphantly wave
As the flag of the Free, or the pall of the brave.
Southern Literary Messenger. |