Peal your wild slogan, echoing far and wide,
Till every ringing avenue repeat
The gathering cry, and Ashley's angry tide
Calls to the sea-waves beating round her feet.
Sons, to the rescue! spurred and belted, come!
Kneeling, with clasp'd hands, she invokes you now
By the sweet memories of your childhood's home,
By every manly hope and filial vow,
To save her proud soul from that loathéd thrall
Which yet her spirit cannot brook to name;
Or, if her fate be near, and she must fall,
Spare her--she sues--the agony and the shame.
From all her fanes let solemn bells be tolled,
Heap with kind hands her costly funeral pyre,
And thus, with pæan sung and anthem rolled,
Give her, unspotted, to the God of Fire.
Gather around her sacred ashes then,
Sprinkle the cherished dust with crimson rain,
Die! as becomes a race of free-born men,
Who will not crouch to wear the bondman's chain.
So, dying, ye shall win a high renown,
If not in life, at least by death, set free--
And send her fame, through endless ages down,
The last grand holocaust of liberty.
Savannah Fallen.
By Alethea S. Burroughs, of Georgia.
I.
Bowing her head to the dust of the earth.
Smitten and stricken is she,
Light after light gone out from her hearth,
Son after son from her knee.
Bowing her head to the dust at her feet,
Weeping her beautiful slain,
Silence! keep silence, for aye in the street,
See! they are coming again.