Ere thou shalt own the tyrant's thrall,
Ten times ten thousand men must fall;
Thy corpse may hearken to his call,
Carolina!
When by thy bier, in mournful throngs,
The women chant thy mortal wrongs,
'Twill be their own funereal songs,
Carolina!
From thy dead breast, by ruffians trod,
No helpless child shall look to God;
All shall be safe beneath thy sod,
Carolina!
VII.
Girt with such wills to do and bear,
Assured in right, and mailed in prayer,
Thou wilt not bow thee to despair,
Carolina!
Throw thy bold banner to the breeze!
Front with thy ranks the threatening seas,
Like thine own proud armorial trees,
Carolina!
Fling down thy gauntlet to the Huns,
And roar the challenge from thy guns;
Then leave the future to thy sons,
Carolina!
My Mother-Land.
By Paul H. Hayne.
"Animis, Opibusque Parati."
My Mother-land! thou wert the first to fling
Thy virgin flag of freedom to the breeze,
The first to humble, in thy neighboring seas,
The imperious despot's power;
But long before that hour,
While yet, in false and vain imagining,
Thy sister nations would not own their foe,
And turned to jest thy warnings, though the low,
Deep, awful mutterings, that precede the throe
Of earthquakes, burdened all the ominous air;
While yet they paused in scorn,
Of fatal madness born,--
Thou, oh, my Mother! like a priestess bless'd
With wondrous vision of the things to come,
Thou couldst not calmly rest
Secure and dumb--
But from thy borders, with the sounds of drum
And trumpet, came the thrilling note, "PREPARE!"
"Prepare for what?" thy careless sisters said;
"We see no threatening tempest overhead,
Only a few pale clouds, the west wind's breath
Will sweep away, or melt in watery death."
"Prepare!" the time grows ripe to meet our doom!
Alas! it was not till the thunder-boom
Of shell and cannon shocked the vernal day,
Which shone o'er Charleston Bay--
When the tamed "Stars and Stripes" before us bowed--
That startled, roused, the last scale fallen away
From, blinded eyes, our SOUTH, erect and proud,
Fronted the issue, and, though lulled too long,
Felt her great spirit nerved, her patriot valor strong.
But darker days have found us--'gainst the horde
Of robber Northmen, who, with torch and sword,
Approach to desecrate
The sacred hearthstone and the Temple-gate--
Who would defile our fathers' graves, and cast
Their ashes to the blast--
Yea! who declare, "we will annihilate
The very bound-lines of your sovereign State"--
Against this ravening flood
Of foul invaders, drunk with lust and blood,
Oh! we,
Strong in the strength of God-supported might,
Go forth to give our foe no paltry fight,
Nor basely yield
To venal legions a scarce blood-dewed field--
But witness, Heaven! if such the need should be,
To make our fated land one vast Thermopylæ!
Death! What of Death?--
Can he who once drew honorable breath
In liberty's pure sphere,
Foster a sensual fear,
When death and slavery meet him face to face,
Saying: "Choose thou between us; here, the grace
Which follows patriot martyrdom, and there,
Black degradation, haunted by despair."