<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=538323" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Ode</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I.<br>Our city by the sea,<br>As the rebel city known,<br>With a soul and spirit free<br>As the waves that make her zone,<br>Stands in wait for the fate<br>From the angry arm of hate;<br>But she nothing fears the terror of his blow;<br>She hath garrisoned her walls,<br>And for every son that falls,<br>She will spread a thousand palls<br>For-the foe!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Old Moultrie at her gate,<br>Clad in arms and ancient fame.<br>Grimly watching, stands elate<br>To deliver bolt and flame!<br>Brave the band, at command,<br>To illumine sea and land<br>With a glory that shall honor days of yore;<br>And, as racers for their goals,<br>A thousand fiery souls,<br>While the drum of battle rolls,<br>Line the shore.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lo! rising at his side,<br>As if emulous to share<br>His old historic pride,<br>The vast form of Sumter there!<br>Girt by waves, which he braves<br>Though the equinoctial raves,<br>As the mountain braves the lightning on his steep;<br>And, like tigers crouching round,<br>Are the tribute forts that bound<br>All the consecrated ground,<br>By the deep!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It was calm, the April noon,<br>When, in iron-castled towers,<br>Our haughty foe came on,<br>With his aggregated powers;<br>All his might 'gainst the right,<br>Now embattled for the fight,<br>With Hell's hate and venom working in his heart;<br>A vast and dread array,<br>Glooming black upon the day,<br>Hell's passions all in play,<br>With Hell's art.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">V.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But they trouble not the souls<br>Of our Carolina host,[1]<br>And the drum of battle rolls,<br>While each hero seeks his post;<br>Firm, though few, sworn to do,<br>Their old city full in view,<br>The brave city of their sires and their dead;<br>There each freeman had his brood,<br>All the dear ones of his blood,<br>And he knew they watching stood,<br>In their dread!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To the bare embattled height,<br>Then our gallant colonel sprung--<br>'Bid them welcome to the fight,'<br>Were the accents of his tongue--<br>'Music! band, pour out--grand--<br>The free song of Dixie Land!<br>Let it tell them we are joyful that they come!<br>Bid them welcome, drum and flute,<br>Nor be your cannon mute,<br>Give them chivalrous salute--<br>To their doom!'[2]</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VII.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Out spoke an eager gun,<br>From the walls of Moultrie then;<br>And through clouds of sulph'rous dun,<br>Rose a shout of thousand men,<br>As the shot, hissing hot,<br>Goes in lightning to the spot--<br>Goes crashing wild through timber and through mail;<br>Then roared the storm from all,<br>Moultrie's ports and Sumter's wall--<br>Bursting bomb and driving ball--<br>Hell in hail!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VIII.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Full a hundred cannon roared<br>The dread welcome to the foe,<br>And his felon spirit cowered,<br>As he crouched beneath the blow!<br>As each side opened wide<br>To the iron and the tide,<br>He lost his faith in armor and in art;<br>And, with the loss of faith,<br>Came the dread of wounds and scath--<br>And the felon fear of death<br>Wrung his heart!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IX.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Quenched then his foul desires;<br>In his mortal pain and fear,<br>How feeble grew his fires,<br>How stayed his fell career!<br>How each keel, made to reel<br>'Neath our thunder, seems to kneel,<br>Their turrets staggering wildly, to and fro, blind and lame;<br>Ironsides and iron roof,<br>Held no longer bullet-proof,<br>Steal away, shrink aloof,<br>In their shame!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">X.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But our lightnings follow fast,<br>With a vengeance sharp and hot;<br>Our bolts are on the blast,<br>And they rive with shell and shot!<br>Huge the form which they warm<br>With the hot breath of the storm;<br>Dread the crash which follows as each Titan mass is struck--<br>They shiver as they fly,<br>While their leader, drifting nigh,<br>Sinks, choking with the cry--<br>'Keokuk!'<br>XI.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>To the brave old city, joy!<br>For that the hostile race,<br>Commissioned to destroy,<br>Hath fled in sore disgrace!<br>That our sons, at their guns,<br>Have beat back the modern Huns--<br>Have maintained their household fanes and their fires;<br>And free from taint and scath,<br>Have kept the fame and faith<br>(And will keep, through blood and death)<br>Of their sires!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XII.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To the Lord of Hosts the glory,<br>For His the arm and might,<br>That have writ for us the story,<br>And have borne us through the fight!<br>His our shield in that field--<br>Voice that bade us never yield;<br>Oh! had he not been with us through the terrors of that day?<br>His strength hath made us strong,<br>Cheered the right and crushed the wrong,<br>To His temple let us throng--<br>PRAISE AND PRAY!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Gilmore+Simms">William Gilmore Simms</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=538323" data-title="Ode de William Gilmore Simms" data-description="I. Our city by the sea, As the rebel city known, With a soul and spirit free As the waves that make her zone, Stands in wait for the fate From the angry arm of hate; But she nothing fears the terror of his blow; She hath garrisoned her walls, And ..."></div> </div> </div>

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