Charleston
Calm as that second summer which precedes
The first fall of the snow,
In the broad sunlight of heroic deeds,
The city bides the foe.
As yet, behind their ramparts, stern and proud,
Her bolted thunders sleep—
Dark Sumter, like a battlemented cloud,
Looms o’er the solemn deep.
No Calpe frowns from lofty cliff or scaur
To guard the holy strand;
But Moultrie holds in leash her dogs of war,
Above the level sand.
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.
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!
IV
Her voice shook the Tyrant!—sublime from her tongue
Fell the accents of warning,—a Prophetess grand,—
On her soil the first life-notes of Liberty rung,
And the first stalwart blow of her gauntleted hand
Broke the sleep of her land!
V
What more! she hath grasped with her iron-bound will
The Fate that would trample her honor to earth,—
The light in those deep eyes is luminous still
With the warmth of her valor, the glow of her worth,
Which illumine the Earth!
VI
And beside her a Knight the great Bayard had loved,
“Without fear or reproach,” lifts her Banner on high;
He stands in the vanguard, majestic, unmoved,
And a thousand firm souls, when that Chieftain is nigh,
Vow, “’tis easy to die!”
VII
Their swords have gone forth on the fetterless air!
The world’s breath is hushed at the conflict! before
Gleams the bright form of Freedom with wreaths in her hair—
And what though the chaplet be crimsoned with gore,
We shall prize her the more!
VIII
And while Freedom lures on with her passionate eyes
To the height of her promise, the voices of yore,
From the storied Profound of past ages arise,
And the pomps of their magical music outpour
O’er the war-beaten shore.
IX
Then gird your brave Empress, O! Heroes, with flame
Flashed up from the sword-points that cover her breast,
She is guarded by Love, and enhaloed by Fame,
And never, base Foe! shall your footsteps be pressed
Where her dead Martyrs rest!