For the swords—one night a week ago,
The remnant, just eleven-
Gathered around a banqueting-board
With seats for thirty-seven.
There were two came in on crutches,
And two had each but a hand,

To pour the wine and raise the cup
As we toasted "Our Flag and Land!"

And the room seemed filled with whispers
As we looked at the vacant seats,
And with choking throats we pushed aside
The rich but untasted meats;

Then in silence we brimmed our glasses

As we stood up—just eleven—

And bowed as we drank to the Loved and the Dead Who had made us thirty-seven!

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 scar
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.

April, 1863.

Ode

[Sung on the occasion of decorating the graves of the Confederate dead at Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S. C., 1867.]

Sleep sweetly in your humble graves,
Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause;
Though yet no marble column craves
The pilgrim here to pause.

In seeds of laurel in the earth

The blossom of your fame is blown,
And somewhere, waiting for its birth,
The shaft is in the stone!

Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years

Which keep in trust your storied tombs,
Behold! your sisters bring their tears,
And these memorial blooms.

Small tributes! but your shades will smile
More proudly on these wreaths to-day,
Than when some cannon-moulded pile
Shall overlook this bay.

Stoop, angels, hither from the skies!

There is no holier spot of ground

Than where defeated valor lies,
By mourning beauty crowned!

The Volunteer

"At dawn," he said, “I bid them all farewell,
To go where bugles call and rifles gleam."
And with the restless thought asleep he fell,
And glided into dream.

A great hot plain from sea to mountain spread,—
Through it a level river slowly drawn:
He moved with a vast crowd, and at its head
Streamed banners like the dawn.

There came a blinding flash, a deafening roar,
And dissonant cries of triumph and dismay;
Blood trickled down the river's reedy shore,
And with the dead he lay.

The morn broke in upon his solemn dream,

And still, with steady pulse and deepening eye, "Where bugles call," he said, "and rifles gleam, I follow, though I die!"