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Page 32
And down the dunes a thousand guns lie couched.
Unseen, beside the flood--
Like tigers in some Orient jungle crouched,
That wait and watch for blood.
Meanwhile, through streets still echoing with trade,
Walk grave and thoughtful men,
Whose hands may one day wield the patriot's blade
As lightly as the pen.
And maidens, with such eyes as would grow dim
Over a bleeding hound,
Seem each one to have caught the strength of him
Whose sword she sadly bound.
Thus girt without and garrisoned at home,
Day patient following day,
Old Charleston looks from roof, and spire, and dome,
Across her tranquil bay.
Ships, through a hundred foes, from Saxon lands
And spicy Indian ports,
Bring Saxon steel and iron to her hands,
And summer to her courts.
But still, along yon dim Atlantic line,
The only hostile smoke
Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine,
From some frail, floating oak.
Shall the spring dawn, and she still clad in smiles,
And with an unscathed brow,
Rest in the strong arms of her palm-crowned isles,
As fair and free as now?
We know not; in the temple of the Fates
God has inscribed her doom;
And, all untroubled in her faith, she waits
The triumph or the tomb.
Charleston.
By Paul H. Hayne.
I.
What! still does the Mother of Treason uprear
Her crest 'gainst the Furies that darken her sea?
Unquelled by mistrust, and unblanched by a Fear,
Unbowed her proud head, and unbending her knee,
Calm, steadfast, and free?
II.
Aye! launch your red lightnings, blaspheme in your wrath,
Shock earth, wave, and heaven with the blasts of your ire;--
But she seizes your death-bolts, yet hot from their path,
And hurls back your lightnings, and mocks at the fire
Of your fruitless desire.
III.
Ringed round by her Brave, a fierce circlet of flame,
Flashes up from the sword-points that cover her breast;
She is guarded by Love, and enhaloed by Fame,
And never, we swear, shall _your_ footsteps be pressed
Where her dead heroes rest!
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