A POEM WHICH NEEDS NO DEDICATION.
BY JAMES BARRON HOPE.
| What! you hold yourselves as freemen? Tyrants love just such as ye! Go! abate your lofty manner! Write upon the State’s old banner, “A furore Normanorum, Libera nos, O Domine!” Sink before the Federal altars, Each one, low on bended knee; Pray, with lips that sob and falter, This prayer from a coward’s Psalter: “A furore Normanorum, Libera nos, O Domine!” But you hold that quick repentance In the Northern mind will be; This repentance comes no sooner Than the robber’s did at Luna.[16] “A furore Normanorum, Libera nos, O Domine!” He repented him; the Bishop Gave him absolution free— Poured upon him sacred chrism In the pomp of his baptism “A furore Normanorum, Libera nos, O Domine!” He repented; then, he sickened— Was he pining for the sea? In extremis he was shriven, The Viaticum was given; “A furore Normanorum, Libera nos, O Domine!” Then the old cathedral’s choir Took the plaintive minor key, With the Host upraised before him, Down the marble aisle they bore him, “A furore Normanorum, Libera nos, O Domine!” And the Bishop, and the Abbot, And the monks of high degree, Chanting praise to the Madonna, Came to do him Christian honor. “A furore Normanorum, Libera nos, O Domine!” Now, the Miserere’s cadence Takes the voices of the sea;— As the music-billows quiver See the dead freebooter shiver! “A furore Normanorum, Libera nos, O Domine!” Is it that those intonations Thrill him thus from head to knee? So! his cerements burst asunder! ’Tis a sight of fear and wonder! “A furore Normanorum, Libera nos, O Domine!” Fierce he stands before the Bishop— Dark as shape of Destinie! Hark! a shriek ascends, appalling! Down the prelate goes, dead—falling; “A furore Normanorum, Libera nos, O Domine!” Hasting lives! He was but feigning! What! Repentant? Never he! Down he smites the priests and friars, And the city lights with fires. “A furore Normanorum, Libera nos, O Domine!” Ah! the children and the maidens, ’Tis in vain they strive to flee! Where the white-haired priests lie bleeding Is no place for tearful pleading. “A furore Normanorum, Libera nos, O Domine?” Louder swells the frightful tumult; Pallid Death holds reverie; Dies the organ’s mighty clamor, By the Norseman’s iron hammer. “A furore Normanorum, Libera nos, O Domine!” And they thought that he repented! Had they nailed him to a tree, He had not deserved their pity, And—they had not lost their city. “A furore Normanorum, Libera nos, O Domine!” There’s a moral in this story, Which is plain as truth can be: If we trust the North’s relenting, We will shriek, too late, repenting, “A furore Normanorum, Libera nos, O Domine!” |
GOD SAVE THE SOUTH.
BY REUBEN NASON.
ON! SOUTHRON, ON!