Arms And The Man. - The Southern Colonies.
By James Barron Hope
Then sweeping down below Virginia's Capes,
From Chesapeake to where Savannah flows,
We find the settlers laughing 'mid their grapes
And ignorant of snows.
The fragrant uppowock, and golden corn
Spread far a-field by river and lagoon,
And all the months poured out from Plenty's Horn
Were opulent as June.
Yet, they had tragedies all dark and fell!
Lone Roanoke Island rises on the view,
And this Peninsula its tale could tell
Of Opecancanough!
But, when the Ocean thunders on the shore
Its waves, though broken, overflow the beach;
So here our Fathers on and onward bore
With English laws and speech.
Kind skies above them, underfoot rich soils;
Silence and Savage at their presence fled;
This Giant's Causeway, sacred through their toils,
Resounded at their tread.
With ardent hearts, and ever-open hands,
Candid and honest, brave and proud they grew,
Their lives and habits colored by fair lands
As skies give waters hue.
The race in semi-Feudal State appears -
Their Knightly figures glow in tender mist,
With ghostly pennons flung from ghostly spears
And ghostly hawks on wrist.
By enterprise and high adventure stirred,
From rude lunette and sentry-guarded croft
They hawked at Empire, and, as on they spurred,
Fate's falcon soared aloft!
Fate's falcon soared aloft full strong and free,
With blood on talons, plumage, beak, and breast!
Her shadow like a storm-shade on the sea
Far-sailing down the West!
Swift hoofs clang out behind that Falcon's flights -
Hoofs shod with Golden Horse Shoes catch the eye!
And as they ring, we see the Forest-Knights -
The Cavaliers ride by!