War Poetry of the South | Page 5

yet wholly
ripe
When all shall own it, but the type
Whereby we shall be known
in every land
Is that vast gulf which laves our Southern strand,
And
through the cold, untempered ocean pours
Its genial streams, that
far-off Arctic shores
May sometimes catch upon the softened breeze

Strange tropic warmth and hints of summer seas.
God Save the South.
George H. Miles, of Baltimore.

God save the South!
God save the South!
Her altars and firesides--

God save the South!
Now that the war is nigh--
Now that we arm
to die--
Chanting--our battle-cry,
Freedom or Death!
God be our shield!
At home or a-field,
Stretch Thine arm over us,

Strengthen and save!
What though they're five to one,
Forward each
sire and son,
Strike till the war is done,
Strike to the grave.
God make the right
Stronger than might!
Millions would trample us

Down in their pride.
Lay, thou, their legions low;
Roll back the
ruthless foe;
Let the proud spoiler know
God's on our side!
Hark! honor's call,
Summoning all--
Summoning all of us
Up to
the strife.
Sons of the South, awake!
Strike till the brand shall break!

Strike for dear honor's sake,
Freedom and Life!
Rebels before
Were our fathers of yore;
Rebel, the glorious name

Washington bore,
Why, then, be ours the same
Title he snatched
from shame;
Making it first in fame,
Odious no more.
War to the hilt!
Theirs be the guilt,
Who fetter the freeman
To
ransom the slave.
Up, then, and undismayed,
Sheathe not the
battle-blade?
Till the last foe is laid
Low in the grave.
God save the South!
God save the South!

Dry the dim eyes that
now
Follow our path.
Still let the light feet rove
Safe through the
orange grove;
Still keep the land we love
Safe from all wrath.
God save the South!
God save the South!
Her altars and firesides--

God save the South!
For the rude war is nigh,
And we must win
or die;
Chanting our battle-cry
Freedom or Death!
You Can Never Win Them Back.
By Catherine M. Warfield.

You can never win them back,
never! never!
Though they perish on the track
of your endeavor;
Though their corses strew the earth
That smiled
upon their birth,
And blood pollutes each hearthstone
forever!
They have risen, to a man
stern and fearless;
Of your curses and your ban
they are careless.
Every hand is on its knife;
Every gun is primed
for strife;
Every palm contains a life
high and peerless!
You have no such blood as theirs
for the shedding,
In the veins of Cavaliers
was its heading.
You have no such stately men
In your abolition
den,
To march through foe and fen,
nothing dreading.
They may fall before the fire
of your legions,
Paid in gold for murd'rous hire--
bought allegiance!
But for every drop you shed
You shall leave a
mound of dead;
And the vultures shall be fed
in our regions.
But the battle to the strong

is not given,
While the Judge of right and wrong
sits in heaven!
And the God of David still
Guides each pebble by
His will;
There are giants yet to kill--
wrong's unshriven.
The Southern Cross.
By E. K. Blunt.
In the name of God! Amen!
Stand for our Southern rights;
On our
side, Southern men,
The God of battles fights!
Fling the invaders
far--
Hurl back their work of woe--
The voice is the voice of a
brother,
But the hands are the hands of a foe.
They come with a
trampling army,
Invading our native sod--
Stand, Southrons! fight
and conquer,
In the name of the mighty God!
They are singing our song of triumph,[1]
Which proclaimed us proud
and free--
While breaking away the heartstrings
Of our nation's
harmony.
Sadly it floateth from us,
Sighing o'er land and wave;

Till, mute on the lips of the poet,
It sleeps in his Southern grave.

Spirit and song departed!
Minstrel and minstrelsy!
We mourn ye,
heavy hearted,--
But we will--we will be free!
They are waving our flag above us,
With the despot's tyrant will;

With our blood they have stained its colors,
And they call it holy still.

With tearful eyes, but steady hand,
We'll tear its stripes apart,

And fling them, like broken fetters,
That may not bind the heart.

But we'll save our stars of glory,
In the might of the sacred sign
Of
Him who has fixed forever
One "Southern Cross" to shine.
Stand, Southrons! fight and conquer!
Solemn, and strong, and sure!


The fight shall not be longer
Than God shall bid endure.
By the life
that but yesterday
Waked with the infant's breath!
By the feet which,

ere morning, may
Tread to the soldier's death!
By the blood which
cries to heaven--
Crimson upon our sod!
Stand, Southrons! fight
and conquer,
In the name of the mighty God!
[1] The Star Spangled Banner. Written by F. S. Key, of Baltimore; all
whose descendants are Confederates.
South Carolina.
December 20, 1860.
S. Henry Dickson.
The deed is done! the die is cast;
The glorious Rubicon is passed:

Hail, Carolina! free at last!
Strong in the right, I see her stand
Where ocean laves the shelving
sand;
Her own Palmetto decks the strand.
She turns aloft her flashing eye;
Radiant, her lonely star[1] on high

Shines clear amidst the darkening sky.
Silent, along those azure deeps
Its course her silver crescent keeps,

And in soft light the landscape steeps.
Fling forth her banner to the gale!
Let all the hosts of earth assail,--

Their fury and their force shall fail.
Echoes the wide