Albery Allson Whitman

An Idyl of the South. Part II. THE SOUTHLAND'S CHARMS AND FREEDOM'S MAGNITUDE

Far in a vale among the mountains blue,
 Close by a stream where roving cattle stray,
Where grand old sylvans darkly crowd the view,
 And towering summits brush the clouds away;
Down where the waters, wildly rushing through
 The rocks, enchant the scene with song and spray,
There round my childhood home, a cabin rude,
Wild Nature taught me Freedom's magnitude.

There I have stood upon the precipice
 That hovered awful space, and heard the leap
Of waters downward with a fearful hiss,
 To thence rush onward in their angry sweep,
Like fiends contending in the fierce abyss;
 And musing there in meditation deep,
I learned to reverence the Almighty Force,
Which rends the hills and shapes the water-course.

And there I've mused among the wood-haunts deep,
 When Silence told her secrets in my ear;
When Echo startled from her midday sleep,
 Would flee and mock, and flee and — disappear.
I've heard the harp-strings of the wild breeze give
 Such music sweet as only poets hear;
While floods of bird-song filled the vibrant boughs
With meanings which no vulgar soul allows.

Here I have heard the all-consoling speech
 Of mystery which fills the solitudes,
When leaves with velvet pleadings do beseech
 The pensive winds to linger in the woods;
And here I've found the depths beyond my reach —
 The depths of feeling o'er which Silence broods —
And out upon which, as upon a sea,
The Soul would venture to meet Deity.

Dear land of many a classic wood and stream,
 The proud birthright of ancient families,
With mountains whose blue robes have been my dream,
 In glorious compass ranged 'neath charming skies;
Thou art a fit retreat, I fondly deem,
 For those romantic loves which brave men prize,
Which clothed a wigwam with historic grace,
And charmed the cabins of an injured race.

Hail, Native land! first-born of Freedom, hail!
 Maintain the foremost rank of pow'r and pride!
Thy far-ranged mountains rich with wooded vale,
 And classic waters rolled in crystal tide,
Adjure thee loftily now to prevail.
 Oh! Let thy sons in New World light decide
To plant for aye on Freedom's glorious heights
The standard of triumphant equal rights.

Here Meditation found a leafy shrine,
 And one could hear the thoughts of Diety
Breathed on the winds; here oracles divine
 Unrolled the secrets of green mystery.
And as the waters of a fair lake shine
 Beneath the sun, rippling delightfully;
So floods of thought here waved before the soul,
In visions bright, to ripple, dance, and roll.

Here Beauty spread her rich and varied store
 Of woods which, blent with strength of hills sublime,
Have made the virgin forests to explore,
 The lasting charm of every age and clime.
'Twas no wild scene where aimless chance reigned o'er
 The dateless lapses of unreckoned Time;
But human skill had lent enough of aid
To vie with Nature's crowning art displayed.

A road beyond, and modest gateway led
 Through wildering vistas to a dark recess,
Where interlaced with light the boughs o'er head
 Like curtains hung, in wastes of loveliness.
And still beyond the farther landscape spread
 Its ample fields in rich and varied dress,
Golden and green, in waving harmonies;
Wooing and wooed by Dixie's charming skies.

Oh, direful day that saw Rebellion's guns
 On valiant Sumter opening from the land;
That saw white-handed Chivalry's proud sons
 Their country's standard trail with impious hand;
Saw erring Carolina's ablest ones
 Invoke red war on their palmetto strand;
And, in their frenzy, send the challenge forth
That roused the legions of the loyal North.

The stars and stripes that in our standard fly,
 Immortal symbols of the nation's might,
The splendor of night's orb-emblazoned sky,
 The blue of day's eternal depths — the white
Of Heaven's peace and spotless purity,
 And red of morn's defiance-streaming light,
Meant nothing which that madcap State would heed,
Which vowed to spread vile slavery or secede.

Time shall set right the wrongs which man has done,
 And Justice in unerring judgment reign;
Though world-wrecks pile round an extinguished sun;
 And star-dust swirl in ruin's lurid train!
The sins of man unchastened shall not run,
 Despite the earth's best valor, wealth, and brain;
Behold, God's angel came in war's dread form,
With all the fury of a tropic storm!

I stood where the contending armies bled —
 A hundred thousand men on either side,
The past returned. Around me rose the dead,
 The brazen bugles rang out far and wide;
The clouds of thund'rous battle round me spread
 O'er lurid fields, where mighty chiefs did ride,
And ranks of serried steel swung into sight,
Flashing afar — an army in its might.

And there was silence in the pulsing air,
 While in the noon sun fluttered banners gay —
A lull that breathed the courage of despair;
 A hush which meant a pause in which to pray,
There youths whose lives had never known a care
 Confronted veterans with locks of aged gray;
Before the cool glare of the veteran,
The blue-eyed youth stood dauntless, man to man.

O'er green fields, each upon his chosen steed,
 The grouped commanders watched the lines swing by —
But those grim heroes had no thought to heed
 The landscape's beauty waving on the eye.
Ah, loveliness availeth naught indeed,
 When Saxon valor hears the battle-cry!
And mountains rising in cerulean skies,
Can then no more avert the warrior's eyes.

With sunny spirit and with knightly dash,
 The brave young legions rode up from the South,
And loyal hosts as brave, if not so rash,
 Stood to receive them at the cannon's mouth.
All nerves were steeled to wait the thunder-crash
 Of opening battle. Sire and beardless youth,
Earth's ties forgetting, raised the battle's yell
And charged right through the storm of shot and shell.

Wide o'er the field as far as eye could see,
 The waves of angry steel came surging on.
Ten thousand chosen sons of chivalry,
 Late bivouaced at the tomb of Washington,
But now sent forward by the high-souled Lee,
 And led by Pickett, Valor's proudest son,
Came sweeping in a hurricane of flame
Death-girdled, up the glorious heights of fame!

Ah, what a splendid show of valor there!
 Lee's fearless cordons in the vale of death,
With Pickett mute and glorious in despair,
 Unflinching in the battle's with'ring breath.
All hail to Pickett, gentle, brave and fair;
 No prouder sword than his e'er leapt from sheath.
And who would not uncovered bow the head,
Where fell the young and gallant Armistead?

Oh, when shall History's muse e'er fitly write
 The charge of Pickett's ragged legions grand,
That faced the guns of Cemetery height?
 What muse shall ever, with inspired hand,
Sing how the great North, in her loyal might,
 Hurled back invading Slavery from her land;
And from her freedom-tented summits saw
Secession's broken strength reel backward and withdraw?

'Tis Lee's retreat; all hail his columns brave.
 With colors full and fair they march abreast;
Rolled back like a tremendous ocean wave,
 Their strength unbroken, though so sore distressed.
Oh, are not soldiers who can thus behave,
 Well worthy of a more sublime behest?
Proud in defeat, superb in battle line;
Base though their cause their valor is divine!

Hail! Fair-souled Lee, the last and mightiest
 Of Southland sons to reach Fame's zenith height;
He sheds a crowning glory on the rest
 Who with him faced the great North in her might.
The stainless Bayard of the South, the best,
 The first and brilliantest of all the bright
Enduring stars that did the North's hosts meet,
He shone with purest lustre in defeat.

And when he to the man of gentle heart —
 The one Field Marshal of the Western world,
His opposite, and yet his counterpart,
 Illustrious Grant, whose standard ne'er was furled
In known defeat, who "moved on" from the start
 And hurled his legions as a Cæsar hurled —
When Lee surrendered to his Northern peer,
War's fortunes rounded a complete career.

One Grant — and there can be no more; one Lee,
 And war's exhausted glories have an end;
One people, white and black, thenceforward free;
 One glorious flag for heroes to defend;
And one proud task ours thence shall ever be:
 To trace the path for all lands in the trend
Of New World progress, and to thence make way
For Freedom throughout all the world for aye!

And hail we all. The men who followed Lee
 Were brave, but best of all — AMERICAN.
So, let them heirs of glory ever be,
 With those who followed Grant and Sheridan.
And that the sable bondman now is free,
 And battle-tried; hail him, too, fellow man.
No gentler nature ever warmed a breast;
And he in valor's equal to the best.

Let stars of rank for all our heroes shine;
 A valiant land should hail them all with pride.
Where deeds of valor thrilled the shell-raked line,
 The Negro stood with Saxon side by side,
And face to face. Yea, where it was divine
 To die for country, there the Negro died.
So let there be an end forever hence
To that race-hate which sickens common sense.

The war is ended; like receding waves,
 Its force subsiding leaves a peaceful shore.
Hushed is the singing of the mournful slaves;
 And in our sunny walks we meet no more
These patient sufferers — sights which no one craves.
 And now, hope-beaming Hesperus leads o'er
A wide horizon our new world-emprise,
With still new regions opening on our eyes.

Roll on! Historic James, thy classic song
 Shall ever thrill the proud hearts of the free;
For, 'mid the virgin woods thy shores along,
 Our patriot-sires first heard the lullaby
Of Freedom, and from Henry's fiery tongue
 First caught the watch-cry: "Give me liberty,
Or give me death!" — when startled Europe heard
That forest Tribune challenge George the Third.

Roll! Shenandoah, thine eternal song
 Roll onward to the all-forgetting sea,
And bear away the Southland's darkest wrong.
 Oh, storied stream, may it forever be
That Plenty's hosts in peace thy shores shall throng,
 And celebrate the triumphs of the free;
While Grant and Lee, illustrious peers, stand forth
Exemplar-Saxons of the South and North.

Thy wont is on the foremost front to lead,
 On the audacious verge thy wont to stay;
My native land! — The voice of Progress heed!
 Arise! and call thy sons to lead the way.
Thy sister nations have in might decreed
 To forge ahead and leave thee if they may;
But thy past glories are a heritage,
Commanding that thou still must lead thy age.

Oh! how I've loved our old South solitudes!
 Where classic waters mused in listless rhyme,
And warbling gladness filled the stately woods!
 But now I long to see this matchless clime
Adjust its life to the vicissitudes
 Of sane endeavor; — long to see the time
When we shall learn that toil excels our dreams,
That mills make better music than the streams!

Two Saxon worlds clasp hands — the Old and New;
 And now their coming great alliance throws
Its shadow, in which tyrants, quaking, view
 Their thrones unsafe, and Freedom's combined foes
Stand trembling, while world-vast emprises brew,
 And Saxon unity takes root and grows;
This unity, world-power and world-emprise,
The eagle and the lion symbolize.

Yea, where the mountains of the future rise
 And opportunity finds glorious scope,
Wealth points the way for lofty enterprise
 And labor views the beacon-star of Hope!
Industry's morn is blazing in the skies,
 And Freedom calls her sons no more to grope,
But in the mastery of Brotherhood,
To scale the heights of greatest human good.

From time when Morn to strew Atlantic sands
 With liquid pearls, trips from her amber gates
Till Evening holds a rainbow in her hands,
 And at the doorway of the Rockies waits;
From North Lakes far, and from the harvest lands
 Of the Dakotas to the Sunny States;
From woods and fields, from rivers and vast mines,
Now Freedom calls us to cast off the lines

And sail forth with the ship and breast the sea.
 On all our hills with banners of green corn,
The bugling air calls out to rouse the free.
 In all our vales love's busy hands adorn
The homes that are the goal of Liberty;
 And robust plenty winds his jocund horn
For pleasure's throngs to meet him in the shade,
Where songful boughs have his pavilions made.

Free labor still our country's hope remains, —
 In this our largest manhood shall be grown;
The spirit of vast woods and vaster plains, —
 Canyons and geysers of the Yellowstone;
Alaskan summits, where bald winter reigns,
 And rests on base of gold his icy throne, —
These all are prophecies of what shall be,
When Freedom's sons shall leave their brothers free.

Then we shall heed no more the dreamer's lute,
 But join the thunderous march of industry;
The mountain gorge shall be no longer mute,
 But toil shall start the haunts of Revery;
And from vast mines down many a headlong chute,
 The burdened car in iron harness fly,
Filling the ancient seats of Solitude
With throb and thrill of Labor's Masterhood.

Our Heav'n-blest land will thenceforth be the great;
 The Blue Ridge Mountains, those fair infant heights,
The charm and glory of a proud old State,
 Will then have comprehended human rights;
And to the past, the obsolete, relate —
 To moonlight trystings, dreams and starry nights —
No longer, but to high imperial dower,
Broad civilization: wealth, expansion, power.

Here roll our streams with freedom in the wave,
 And birdsong tunes the freedom of the air;
Here manhood fills the goblet of the brave,
 And Beauty's cheeks with ruddy life are fair.
Here larger spheres of life lead one to crave
 No boon which all his fellows may not share;
And one looks forward to a grander day
For mankind, opening in true Freedom's sway.

But lingering still, the light of olden days
 Falls softly on the slopes of mem'ry yet;
And I am looking through the gentle haze
 On scenes gone by, which I can ne'er forget.
And though in our New World's imposing phase
 The great ambitions round me chafe and fret,
Still turning to the quiet past I find
Old scenes surviving which delight the mind.

Oh, happy days when wealth strove to create
 Those homely joys which man now little knows;
When hounds and horns found patrons in the great,
 And stirred to lofty emulation those
Who held the foremost rank in Church and State,
 Who highest in profound achievements rose;
When Beauty even threw her loving heart
Into the chase and took a brilliant part.

A slender-waisted Venus of the chase,
 For whom one's admiration knew no bounds;
A tall athletic paragon of grace,
 She sat her gallant steed and rode to hounds.
The blood of heroes glowing in her face,
 Through clam'rous woods and over open grounds;
The horn blast sending thrills through all her veins
She swept before and held the fearless reins.

Oh! that the golden light of olden days,
 In all but slavery, might return once more!
Oh! for the fearless manhood which essays
 To champion all the virtues of the poor,
Which scorns to imitate the vulgar ways
 Of upstart fortune. How one must deplore
The painful symptoms of decaying taste,
When chivalry is dead or run to waste.

I know familiar faces on the walls
 Of time may look down from the long ago,
On which the light too strong at present falls,
 Revealing what we should not care to know.
But still the lessons which a look recalls,
 Through golden mists of time will softly glow;
And what were painful else, 'tis ever true,
Will, down the vistas, form a pleasing view.

Oh, for a harp to wake and fitly sing
 The homely pleasures which I used to know —
That some sweet spirit of the past might bring
 To me the forms I've loved in years ago;
For mem'ry's light doth still around me fling
 Their images as hearth-fires shadows throw.
And thus I linger as we pass along
With just a note of sadness in my song.

Thus I can hear the slave-songs homeward turning, —
 Those Soul-felt lays that left no trace of care,
But somehow told us that the heart was yearning
 For better worlds, where man to man is fair.
And candles through the whispering twilight burning,
 Still shed their gleams of welcome on the air;
And I can feel with nameless throb and thrill,
The big round world beginning to be still.

Now there's a lull; — earth's great heart resting beats,
 And in the drowsy leaves just out of reach,
A tree-frog prophesying rain, entreats
 Dull night to hear; while with contentious speech
Her old dispute the katydid repeats;
 A night owl yonder starts her witch-like screech,
And in the brindled shadow of the hill,
Behind the corn field, hark! — a whippoorwill.

And I can see forms round the Summer fire
 Content with earth's scant bounties for the poor;
Can hear gay talk and laughter rising higher;
 And see my "old black mammy" in the door.
Can hear the tune: "Virginny nebber tire,"
 See Pickanninies dancing on the floor;
Till song breaks out and blossoms on the air,
And mirth has put to flight the heels of Care.

There never was a Delphian priestess' song,
 Nor hymn of gods, nor laureled victor's lay,
To move my heart like sounds when I was young —
 Those sounds of rest which closed the happy day.
No oracle could ever have a tongue
 That in my ears such mystic hints could say,
As I have heard by whisp'ring maples said,
When in the dusk a slave his banjo played.

Grand though the strides of New World enterprise,
 Though with success our vast industries hum,
The proud old South must still turn her blue eyes
 On scenes gone by until at times there come
The mists of sadness in them. Sunny skies,
 And landscapes that are the perennial sum
Of flow'r and fruit, are not for her complete,
While one is absent whom no more she'll meet.

Her proud old Negro of religious mind,
 The ebon patriarch of sunny eld,
The personage most noted of his kind,
 The one in gentlest memory ever held,
In patient servitude no more she'll find.
 His day is past. His children have rebelled,
Alas! repudiated slavery days,
And through the schools have learned the new-found ways.

And yet for him the South will ever morn;
 His virtues and his foibles will enshrine
In song and story. Like a lover lorn,
 In beauty peerless and in faith divine,
And by her splendid valor well upborne;
 In her proud heart, still, still the South will pine
For him who once her life such flavor gave —
The pompous, kindly, faithful, old-time slave!

He watched the cradle of white innocence,
 And feeble age's drooping head sustained;
Rejoiced when day without a cloud commenced,
 But, in the storm, unmurmuring still remained.
He loved his master; held his confidence,
 Esteem and love in turn, and honor gained.
His taste was e'er consulted and his tact
Employed — he was his master's lord, in fact.

But he is gone! His passing brings a sigh.
 And thou, Old South, superbly fine and fair!
Thou, old White Lady, of a reign gone by,
 With threads of silver in thy sunny hair,
And in thy gaze the blue of Summer sky,
 While breath of roses steals upon the air;
Thou, too, dost pass! — thy skirts of silken pride
Trail by, alas! through halls of mem'ry wide.

And there are voices in the golden gloom,
 Where in the shadows forms of loved ones meet.
The air is prodigal of rich perfume —
 The breath of shrubs and honeysuckles sweet,
While down the hall that leaves a vacant room,
 I hear the brisk sounds of departing feet;
And I must pause, and say, ere fades the light:
Thou old White Lady of the past — good night!

But let them go! "Old Glory" waves on high.
 The war is over, and the slaves are free.
The Blue Ridge Mountains look into the sky,
 And peaks of Otter look into the sea.
Proud heights, from which, when Randolph rapturously
 Beheld the Heav'ns with sunrise blushing, he
Declared that thence he must in God believe —
The Cause which mind must in such works perceive.

Farewell, alas! my native land adored!
 I've sung thy praises in a faithful strain;
But westward life's imperial tides have poured,
 Eddying in towns, and sweeping on again,
While braver hearts have in their strength ignored
 The old South limitations which remain.
And I must leave the land which gave me birth,
Or pine, an alien, on my native hearth.

Hail! Morn upon the mountains! Orient queen!
 Awakening Earth rejoices in thy reign!
A world of fruited hill and meadows green,
 With waving seas of corn and bearded grain,
Far spread, invests with plenty's glorious sheen
 The path of empire o'er the western plain;
And mind, enlarged by areas vast and heights
Sublime, perceives the scope of Human Rights.

Hail! Sovran Rockies! Sent'nels of the sun!
 The course of empire, in the race sublime
Of world-endeavor, at the East begun,
 With thee shall end; and from the gates of Time
Earth shall no more behold such races run!
 Snow-mantled sea-guards! Bulwarks of our clime,
The standard of triumphant Equal Rights,
Forever fly from thy unconquered heights!

Peaks dipped in Heaven, and far-flung bounds of space;
 Stupendous canyons, earthquake-riven and wrought,
That are the seams of age in Nature's face —
 The wrinkles in which we may read God's thought;
And crags piled high — stairways on which we trace
 God's footprints — these have all sublimely taught
That Freedom in her strongholds is secure;
That God shall reign and Human Rights endure.

Hail! Rockies, hail! fit for Jehovah's seat!
 Mid thy pavilions of the curtained mist,
While the Pacific couches at thy feet,
 Rise thou for aye the tyrant to resist!
Rise thou, till Freedom calls her sons to meet,
 And, crowned with gold and robed in amethyst,
She welcomes all the earth to fill her train,
Join her triumphant march and share her reign.

Hail! Rockies, thunder-tongued, hold thou the watch
 Of Freedom from thy parapets on high!
The footsteps of the rosy morning catch,
 And hold the dying glories of the sky;
For in sublimity thou hast no match,
 Thou threshold watchers of Eternity!
Rise in the way of Freedom's every foe —
Rise thou for aye, O Sovran of the snow!

On thy dread summits which to Heav'n doth soar
 I pause where thunders sleep, and, gazing through
The depths that lead beyond and evermore,
 I rest till heights in grandeur piled imbue
The Soul with praises fitly to adore
 The Awful One whose power alone could do
The works, O wondrous Rockies, thou didst see,
Ere trembling day came forth or man could be!

Here, crag-watched round, the Soul hath found a shrine,
 And, in white robes, Thought walks with Deity!
Here lips of awe speak oracles divine
 'Mid listening heights of immortality;
And Heav'ns eternal watch-lights here shall shine
 High in the temple dome of Liberty,
While ages marshal in their silent flight,
Earth's millions in defense of Truth and Right.

I had a dream: Columbia the Great,
 The Arbitress of Nations had prevailed.
From Europe trains crossed bridge-spanned Behrings's Strait
 And ships through Panama from South Seas sailed.
Through atmospheric tubes the mail and freight
 Skimmed hill and dale and loftiest mountains scaled;
Threading the richest cities, on they went,
And in a few hours crossed the continent.

I saw our fleets guarding a hundred seas,
 All with unshotted guns ride proudly home;
I saw the hosts that watch our liberties
 By land afar from bloodless conquest come.
And shouts of welcome then rose on the breeze,
 With bells and whistles in uproarous hum;
And Peace's multitudes went singing, streaming
Through leagues of bunting, and of standards gleaming

And not a home, a mansion or a hut
 In all the land, but heard the call that day.
From plainsman's ranch and miner's cabin shut
 In forest depths and mountain far away,
The sons of Freedom came, and cities put
 Their millions forth to swell the concourse gay.
It was a jubilee of joy and tears:
Columbia had reigned a thousand years!

The Sphinx of Race Hate looked into the past,
 Unheeded as the cheering throngs went by
In thund'rous unison, a concourse vast,
 Proclaimed the triumphing of Liberty.
The walls of Wrong had gone down at the blast
 Of Truth's oncoming trumpets; Earth and Sky
Attesting the inexorable plan,
That all men shall arise in raising man.

And then I saw that Toil need not sweat blood;
 But be reduced to healthful exercise.
Yet mankind had sufficiency of food,
 That, barring avarice, all had full supplies
For mind and body. Then I understood —
 The State-fixed bounds for corporate Enterprise,
Adjusting all disputes 'twixt Capital
And Labor fairly — Law deciding all.

I saw the children cared for by the State,
 As well as by their parents — that, indeed,
The nation held first claim in all the great
 Concerns of health and training — man's first need.
I saw that man must rule and regulate
 His home by love, and never by a creed:
That health, intelligence, Morality,
Saved in the child, safeguarded Liberty.

And so, no children roamed the streets at will,
 In hungry shoals to swarm the streams of Time;
But wise apprenticeships restrained them till
 They had escaped the snares of early crime,
And reached safe heights of industry and skill;
 And there was not allowed a wedding chime
When there was presence of a known disease,
Hence, no divorces, no adulteries.

I saw a city in the setting sun,
 Superb and vast, that crowned a noble height;
It was the city of the Yellowstone.
 In New World greatness, from its ancient site
Removed — the future's Washington.
 And guarded round, in its unconquered might,
By leagues of fortress, was a populace
Unnumbered, drawn from ev'ry human race.

And then I stood within a stately hall;
 Ten thousand brilliant dancers thronged the floor;
'Twas at the Nation's great Inaugural,
 And there were guests from home and foreign shore —
Statesmen and epauleted warriors tall,
 Churchmen of note, and far-famed men of lore,
All in the sunny light of woman's love,
With airs of valor, like the gods, they move.

On swept the throngs, in eddies whirled and flowed
 Through flow'ry aisles and flag-hung corridors;
On, on, while Fortune's trophies flashed and glowed
 'Neath lamps that on the tessellated floors
Poured floods of light; and strangers proudly strode
 Among admiring groups — the guests of our fair shores —
While hid in labyrinths of shrubs and flowers,
Enchanting strains beguiled the fleeting hours.

There from the South I saw the blue-eyed blonde,
 And from the North the Junoesque brunette;
From Hawaii the olive maiden fond,
 The dainty Cuban with her eyes of jet —
And Octoroon whose beauty was beyond
 Description, in a swirl of glory met,
Through mazy depths of flow'rs and lace to stream —
A symphony of lovely forms — My Dream.