Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.
By HenryTimrod526 Charleston
C
The first fall of the snow,
In the broad sunlight of heroic deeds,
The city bides the foe.
Her bolted thunders sleep,—
Dark Sumter, like a battlemented cloud,
Looms o’er the solemn deep.
To guard the holy strand;
But Moultrie holds in leash her dogs of war
Above the level sand.
Unseen, beside the flood,—
Like tigers in some Orient jungle crouched,
That wait and watch for blood.
Walk grave and thoughtful men,
Whose hands may one day wield the patriot’s blade
As lightly as the pen.
Over a bleeding hound,
Seem each one to have caught the strength of him
Whose sword she sadly bound.
Day patient following day,
Old Charleston looks from roof and spire and dome,
Across her tranquil bay.
And spicy Indian ports,
Bring Saxon steel and iron to her hands,
And summer to her courts.
The only hostile smoke
Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine,
From some frail floating oak.
And with an unscathed brow,
Rest in the strong arms of her palm crowned isles,
As fair and free as now?
God has inscribed her doom:
And, all untroubled in her faith, she waits
The triumph or the tomb.