Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/39

SUMTER May spring up a vengeful Fury, hissing through your slave-worn lands!

And Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

May trouble you more than ever, when you've nailed his coffin down!

November, 1859.

SUMTER

12, 1861

the morning of that day

When the God to whom we pray

Gave the soul of Henry Clay

To the land;

How we loved him, living, dying!

But his birthday banners flying

Saw us asking and replying

Hand to hand.

For we knew that far away,

Round the fort in Charleston Bay,

Hung the dark impending fray,

Soon to fall;

And that Sumter's brave defender

Had the summons to surrender

Seventy loyal hearts and tender,—

(Those were all!)

And we knew the April sun

Lit the length of many a gun,—

Hosts of batteries to the one

Island crag:

Guns and mortars grimly frowning,

Johnson, Moultrie, Pinckney, crowning, 9