Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/470

  While the stormwinds waft on high Their ringing battle-cry: "Our country,—our country forever!"

The brave old flag above them is rippling down its red,— Each crimson stripe the emblem of the blood by heroes shed; It shall wave for them victorious or droop above them,—dead, For they'll answer to the roll call in the mornin'.

They'll rally to the fight In the stormy day and night, In bonds that no cruel fate shall sever; While the stormwinds waft on high Their ringing battle-cry: "Our country,—our country forever!"

 

[Madison Julius Cawein was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1865. After graduating from the high school of that city, he engaged in business, but found time for the writing of poetry and the study of literature. His first volume of verse, "Blooms of the Berry," published in 1887, made but little impression until, in 1888, Mr. W. D. Howells praised it in the "Editor's Study" of Harper's Magazine. This drew attention to Cawein's work, and gradually his circle of admirers was enlarged. In all, Cawein published some twenty columns of poems, the best of which he collected toward the close of his life in a volume entitled "Selected Poems." He died in Louisville in 1914.]

