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Page 46
_"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 Thermopyl�!
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."
Death! What of Death?--
The vilest reptiles, brutes or men, who crawl
Across their portion of this earthly ball,
Share life and motion with us; would we strive
Like such to creep alive,
Polluted, loathsome, only that with sin
We still might keep our mortal breathings in?
The very thought brings blushes to the cheek!
I hear all 'round about me murmurs run,
Hot murmurs, but soon merging into ONE
Soul-stirring utterance--hark! the people speak:
"Our course is righteous, and our aims are just!
Behold, we seek
Not merely to preserve for noble wives
The virtuous pride of unpolluted lives,
To shield our daughters from the ruffian's hand,
And leave our sons their heirloom of command,
In generous perpetuity of trust;
Not only to defend those ancient laws,
Which Saxon sturdiness and Norman fire
Welded forevermore with freedom's cause,
And handed scathless down from sire to sire--
Nor yet, our grand religion, and our Christ,
Undecked by upstart creeds and vulgar charms,
(Though these had sure sufficed
To urge the feeblest Sybarite to arms)--
But more than all, because embracing all,
Insuring all, SELF-GOVERNMENT, the boon
Our patriot statesmen strove to win and keep,
From prescient Pinckney and the wise Calhoun
To him, that gallant Knight,
The youngest champion in the Senate hall,
Who, led and guarded by a luminous fate,
His armor, Courage, and his war-horse, Right,
Dared through the lists of eloquence to sweep
Against the proud Bois Guilbert of debate![1]
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