But a base foe comes from the regions of crime,
With a heart all hot with the flames of hell;
And the tones of the bell you have loved so long
No more on the air shall swell:
For the people's chief,
With his proud belief
That his country's cause is God's own,
Would change the song,
The hills have rung,
To the thunder's harsher tone.
Then take me down from the village church,
Where in peace so long I have hung;
But I charge you, by all the loved and lost,
Remember the songs I have sung.
Remember the mound
Of holy ground,
Where your father and mother lie;
And swear by the love
For the dead above
To beat your foul foe or die.
Then take me; but when (I charge you this)
You have come to the bloody field,
That the bell of God, to a cannon grown,
You will ne'er to the foeman yield.
By the love of the past,
Be that hour your last,
When the foe has reached this trust;
And make him a bed
Of patriot dead,
And let him sleep in this holy dust.
[1] Mortally wounded at the battle of Seven Pines.
The Tree, the Serpent, and the Star.
By A. P. Gray, of South Carolina.
From the silver sands of a gleaming shore,
Where the wild sea-waves were breaking,
A lofty shoot from a twining root
Sprang forth as the dawn was waking;
And the crest, though fed by the sultry beam,
(And the shaft by the salt wave only,)
Spread green to the breeze of the curling seas,
And rose like a column lonely.
Then hail to the tree, the Palmetto tree,
Ensign of the noble, the brave, and the free.
As the sea-winds rustled the bladed crest,
And the sun to the noon rose higher,
A serpent came, with an eye of flame,
And coiled by the leafy pyre;
His ward he would keep by the lonely tree,
To guard it with constant devotion;
Oh, sharp was the fang, and the arméd clang,
That pierced through the roar of the ocean,
And guarded the tree, the Palmetto tree,
Ensign of the noble, the brave, and the free.
And the day wore down to the twilight close,
The breeze died away from the billow;
Yet the wakeful clang of the rattles rang
Anon from the serpent's pillow;
When I saw through the night a gleaming star
O'er the branching summit growing,
Till the foliage green and the serpent's sheen
In the golden light were glowing,
That hung o'er the tree, the Palmetto tree,
Ensign of the noble, the brave, and the free.
By the standard cleave every loyal son,
When the drums' long roll shall rattle;
Let the folds stream high to the victor's eye;
Or sink in the shock of the battle.
Should triumph rest on the red field won,
With a victor's song let us hail it;
If the battle fail and the star grow pale,
Yet never in shame will we veil it,
But cherish the tree, the Palmetto tree,
Ensign of the noble, the brave, and the free.