Southern literary readings

Front matter

V-

HE SOUTH is a land that has known sorrows; it is a land that has broken the ashen crust and moistened it with its tears; a land scarred and riven by the plowshare of war and billowed with the graves of her dead ; but a land of legend j a land of song, a land of hallowed and heroic memories.

Edward Ward Carmack.

II We fly by day, and shun its Hght

But, prompt to strike the sudden blow, We mount, and start with early night.

And through the forest track our foe.

And soon he hears our chargers leap,

The flashing sabre blinds his eyes, And ere he drives away his sleep

And rushes from his camp, he dies.

Ill Free bridle-bit, good gallant steed.

That will not ask a kind caress,

To swim the Santee at our need, When on his heels the f oemen press —

The true heart and the ready hand, The spirit, stubborn to be free —

The twisted bore, the smiting brand— And we are Marion's men, you see.

IV Now light the fire, and cook the meal

The last, perhaps, that we shall taste; I hear the Swamp Fox round us steal.

And that 's a sign we move in haste.

He whistles to the scouts, and hark !

You hear his order calm and low — Come, wave your torch across the dark.

And let us see the boys that go.

V

We may not see their forms again,

God help 'em, should they find the strife ! For they are strong and fearless men,

And make no coward terms for life : They '11 fight as long as Marion bids.

And when he speaks the word to shy.

Then — not till then — they turn their steeds.

Through thickening shade and swamp to fly.

VI Now stir the fire, and lie at ease

The scouts are gone, and on the brush I see the colonel bend his knees.

To take his slumbers too — but hush!

He's praying, comrades: 'tis not strange;

The man that 's fighting day by day.

May well, when night comes, take a change.

And down upon his knees to pray.

The Swamp Fox 2y

VII Break up that hoecake, boys, and hand

The sly and silent jug that's there; I love not it should idly stand,

When Marion's men have need of cheer. 'Tis seldom that our luck affords

A stuff like this we just have quaffed, And dry potatoes on our boards i

May always call for such a draught.

VIII Now pile the brush and roll the log

Hard pillow, but a soldier's head, That 's half the time in brake and bog,

Must never think of softer bed. <

The owl is hooting to the night,

The cooter crawling o'er the bank.

And in that pond the plashing light,

Tells where the alligator sank.