Henry timrod

written during wartime 

a poem in 4 stanza

ETHNOGENESIS. By Henry Timrod. Written during the meeting of the first Southern Congress, at Montgomery. February, 1861.


Written During the Meeting of the First Southern Congress, at Montgomery, February, 186
montgomery
was the Confederate capital for a while, before Richmond virgina

it says the morning dawned with added light

the evening with another star

mark the day in heaven, we are a nation among nations, another flag unfurled 

gentle daughters marching in ranks

direct quote

THE SNOW OF SOUTHERN SUMMERS! Let the earth 

 Rejoice! beneath those fleeces soft and warm 

 Our happy land shall sleep 

 In a repose as deep

 As if we lay intrenched behind

 Whole leagues of Russian ice and Arctic storm!

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/845/845-h/845-h.htm#link2H_4_0058

 II

 And what if, mad with wrongs themselves have wrought,
 In their own treachery caught,
 By their own fears made bold,
 And leagued with him of old,
 Who long since in the limits of the North
 Set up his evil throne, and warred with God—
 What if, both mad and blinded in their rage,
 Our foes should fling us down their mortal gage,
 And with a hostile step profane our sod!
 We shall not shrink, my brothers, but go forth
 To meet them, marshaled by the Lord of Hosts,

 And overshadowed by the mighty ghosts
???????
 Of Moultrie and of Eutaw—who shall foil
 Auxiliars such as these? Nor these alone,
 But every stock and stone
 Shall help us; but the very soil,
 And all the generous wealth it gives to toil,
 And all for which we love our noble land,
 Shall fight beside, and through us; sea and strand,
 The heart of woman, and her hand,
 Tree, fruit, and flower, and every influence,
 Gentle, or grave, or grand;
 The winds in our defence
 .

    Nor would we shun the battle-ground, Though weak as we are strong;
 Call up the clashing elements around,
 And test the right and wrong!
 On one side, creeds that dare to teach
 What Christ and Paul refrained to preach;
 Codes built upon a broken pledge,
 And Charity that whets a poniard's edge;
 Fair schemes that leave the neighboring poor
 To starve and shiver at the schemer's door,



Religion, taking every mortal form But that a pure
 and Christian faith makes warm, 
Where not to vile fanatic passion urged,
 Or not in vague philosophies submerged,
 Repulsive with all Pharisaic leaven, 
And making laws to stay the laws of Heaven! 
And on the other, scorn of sordid gain, 
Unblemished honor, truth without a stain,
 Faith, justice, reverence, charitable wealth, 
And, for the poor and humble, laws which give,
 Not the mean right to buy the right to live, 
But life, and home, and health!
 To doubt the end were want of trust in God,
 Who, if he has decreed 
That we must pass a redder sea
 Than that which rang to Miriam's holy glee,
 Will surely raise at need
 A Moses with his rod!