Songs and Ballads of the Southern People Part 30

THE TURTLE.

Caesar, afloat with his fortunes!

And all the world agog, Straining its eyes At a thing that lies In the water, like a log!

It's a weasel! a whale!

I see its tail!

It's a porpoise! a polywog!

Tarnation! it's a _turtle_!

And blast my bones and skin, My hearties, sink her, Or else you'll think her A regular terror--pin!

The frigate poured a broadside!

The bombs they whistled well, But--hit old Nick With a sugar stick!

It didn't phase her sh.e.l.l!

_Piff_, from the creature's larboard-- And dipping along the water A bullet hissed From a wreath of mist Into a Doodle's quarter!

_Raff_, from the creature's starboard-- _Rip_, from his ugly snorter, And the Congress and The c.u.mberland Sunk, and nothing--shorter.

Now, here's to you, Virginia, And you are bound to win!

By your rate of bobbing round And your way of pitchin' in-- For you are a cross Of the old sea-horse And a regular terror--pin.

JACKSON.

BY HENRY L. FLASH.

Not 'midst the lightning of the stormy fight, Not in the rush upon the vandal foe, Did kingly Death, with his resistless might, Lay the Great Leader low.

_His warrior soul its earthly shackles broke, In the full suns.h.i.+ne of a peaceful town_; When all the storm was hushed, the trusty oak That propped our cause, went down.

Though his alone the blood that flecks the ground, Recording all his grand, heroic deeds, Freedom herself is writhing with the wound, And all the country bleeds.

He entered not the Nation's Promised Land At the red belching of the cannon's mouth; But broke the House of Bondage with his hand-- The Moses of the South!

O gracious G.o.d! not gainless is the loss: A glorious sunbeam gilds thy sternest frown; _And while his country staggers with the cross, He rises with the crown!_

SONG OF THE PRIVATEER.

BY ALEX H. c.u.mMINS.

Fearlessly the seas we roam, Tossed by each briny wave; Its boundless surface is our home, Its bosom deep our grave.

No foreign mandate fills with awe Our gallant-hearted band; We know no home, we know no law, But that of Dixie's land.

The bright star is our compa.s.s true, Our chart the ocean wide; Our only hope the n.o.ble few That's standing side by side.

We do not fear the stormy gale That sweeps old ocean's strand; We scorn our enemy's clumsy sail, And all for Dixie's land.

We love to hoist to the topmost peak _Our Southern Stars and Stripes_; And woe to him who dares to seek To trample on their rights!

It is the aegis of the free, And by it we will stand, And watch it waving o'er the sea, And over Dixie's land.

We love to roam the deep, deep sea, And hear the cannon's boom, And give the war-cry wild and free Amid the battle's gloom.

We do not fight alone for gain, So far from native strand; But our country's freedom and its fame, And the fair of Dixie's land.

NO UNION MEN.

BY MILLIE MAYFIELD.

"On the 21st, five of the enemy's steamers approached Was.h.i.+ngton, N. C., and landed a hundred Yankees, who marched through the town, playing 'Yankee Doodle,' hoisted their flag on the court-house, and destroyed gun-carriages and an unfinished gun-boat in the s.h.i.+p-yard. The people preserved a sullen and unresisting silence. The Yankees then left, saying they were disappointed in not finding Union men."--_Telegram from Charleston, March 29, 1862._

"Union men!" O thrice-fooled fools!

As well might ye hope to bind The desert sands with a silken thread, When tossed by the whistling wind, Or to blend the shattered waves that lash The feet of the cleaving rock, When the tempest walks the face of the deep, And the water-spirits mock, As the severed chain to reunite In a peaceful link again; On our burning homesteads ye may write, "We found no Union men."

Aye, hoist your old dishonored flag, And pipe your worn-out tune; The hills of the South have caught the strain, And will answer it full soon; Not with the sycophantic tone, And the cringing knee bent low-- The deep-mouthed cannon shall bear the tale, Where the sword deals blow for blow; Our braying trumpets in your ears, Shall defiant shout again, "Back, wolves and foxes, to your lairs, Here are no Union men!"

_Union_, with tastes dissimilar?

Such Union is the worst And direst form of bondage that Nations or men have cursed!

_Union with traitors?_ Hear ye not That cry for vengeance, deep, Where hand to hand, and foot to foot, Our glittering columns sweep?

Our iron-tongued artillery Shouts through the bristling glen, To the war-drum echoing reveille, "Here are no Union men!"

Oh, deep have sunken the burning seeds That the winged winds have borne, That for all your future years must yield The thistle and prison-thorn; Our soil was genial--ye might have sown A harvest rich. 'Tis too late!

To our children's children we leave for you But a heritage of Hate!

Ye have opened the wild flood-gates of war, And we may not the torrent pen; But ye seek in vain on our storm-beat sh.o.r.e For the myth called "Union Men."

HARP OF THE SOUTH.

A SONNET. BY "CORA."

Harp of the South, awake! A loftier strain Than ever yet thy tuneful strings has stirred, Awaits thee now. The Eastern world has heard The thunder of the battle 'cross the main-- Has seen the young South burst the tyrant's chain, And rise to being at a single word-- The watchword, Liberty--so long transferred To the oppressor's mouth. Moons wax and wane, And still the nations stand with listening ear, And still o'er ocean floats the battle-cry.

Harp of the South, awake, and bid them hear The name of Jackson; loud, and clear, and high, Strike notes exultant, o'er the hero's bier, Who, though he sleeps in dust, can never die.