Ethnogenesis
Written During the Meeting of the First Southern Congress, at Montgomery, February, 1861
I
Hath not the morning dawned with added light?And shall not evening call another starOut of the infinite regions of the night,To mark this day in Heaven? At last, we areA nation among nations; and the worldShall soon behold in many a distant portAnother flag unfurled!Now, come what may, whose favor need we court?And, under God, whose thunder need we fear?Thank Him who placed us hereBeneath so kind a sky—the very sunTakes part with us; and on our errands runAll breezes of the ocean; dew and rainDo noiseless battle for us; and the Year,And all the gentle daughters in her train,March in our ranks, and in our service wieldLong spears of golden grain!A yellow blossom as her fairy shield,June flings her azure banner to the wind,While in the order of their birthHer sisters pass, and many an ample fieldGrows white beneath their steps, till now, behold,Its endless sheets unfoldTHE SNOW OF SOUTHERN SUMMERS! Let the earthRejoice! beneath those fleeces soft and warmOur happy land shall sleepIn a repose as deepAs if we lay intrenched behindWhole leagues of Russian ice and Arctic storm!
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 NorthSet 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 forthTo meet them, marshaled by the Lord of Hosts,And overshadowed by the mighty ghostsOf Moultrie and of Eutaw—who shall foilAuxiliars such as these? Nor these alone,But every stock and stoneShall 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 defenceShall seem to blow; to us the hills shall lendTheir firmness and their calm;And in our stiffened sinews we shall blendThe strength of pine and palm!
III
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 teachWhat 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 poorTo starve and shiver at the schemer’s door,While in the world’s most liberal ranks enrolled,He turns some vast philanthropy to gold;Religion, taking every mortal formBut 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 decreedThat we must pass a redder seaThan that which rang to Miriam’s holy glee,Will surely raise at needA Moses with his rod!
IV
But let our fears—if fears we have—be still,And turn us to the future! Could we climbSome mighty Alp, and view the coming time,The rapturous sight would fillOur eyes with happy tears!Not only for the glories which the yearsShall bring us; not for lands from sea to sea,And wealth, and power, and peace, though these shall be;But for the distant peoples we shall bless,And the hushed murmurs of a world’s distress:For, to give labor to the poor,The whole sad planet o’er,And save from want and crime the humblest door,Is one among the many ends for whichGod makes us great and rich!The hour perchance is not yet wholly ripeWhen all shall own it, but the typeWhereby we shall be known in every landIs that vast gulf which lips our Southern strand,And through the cold, untempered ocean poursIts genial streams, that far off Arctic shoresMay sometimes catch upon the softened breezeStrange tropic warmth and hints of summer seas.