| |
| 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, | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| 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, | 15 |
| 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. | 20 |
| |
| 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, | 25 |
| 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, | 30 |
| Bring Saxon steel and iron to her hands, | |
| And summer to her courts. | |
| |
| But still, along you dim Atlantic line, | |
| The only hostile smoke | |
| Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine, | 35 |
| 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? | 40 |
| |
| 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.
April, 1863. | |
| |
