New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1861-03-11
[Fron the Charleston Courier.
Ode Oh Occasion of the Meeting of the
Southern Congress.
BY HENRY TIMRoD,


Hath not the morning dawned with added light?
And will not evening call another star
Out of the infinite regions of the night,
To mark this day id Heaven! At last, we are
nation among nations; and the world
Shall soon behold in many distant port
Another Flag unfurled
Now, come what may, whose favor need we court
And, under God, whose thunder need we fear?
Thank him who placed us here
Beneath 80 kind sky--the very sun
Takes part with us; and on our errands run
All breezes OF the ocean; dew and rain
De noseless battle for us; and the Year,
And all the gentle daughters in her train,
March IN our ranks, and in our service WELD
Long spears of golden grain!
A yellow blossom as her fairy shield,
June tngs our azure banner to the wind,
While in the order of their birth
her sisters pass, and many an ample field
GROWS white beneath their steps, till now behold
Its endless sheets unfold
LEE SNOW OF SouTHERNtsuMMERs! Let the earth
Rejoice!-- beneath those leeces soft and warm
Our happy land shall sleep
In repose as deep,
As if we lay intrenched behind
Whole leagues of Russian ice and Arctic storm!
And what if mad with wrongs themselves have
wrought,
@ In their own treachery caught,
By their own fears made bold,
And leagued with him of old
Who long since in the limits of the North
Set up his evil throne, and warred with God
What If, both mad and blinded in their rage
Our foes should fling us down their mortal gage,
And with hostile step profane our sod!
We shall not shrink, my brothers, but go forth
70 meet them, marshaled by the Lord of Hosts,
And overshadowed by the mighty ghosts
OF Moultrie and of Eutaw-who shall foil
Auxillars such as these? Nor these alone
But every stock and stone
Shall help us; but the very SOIL
AND all the generous wealth it gives to toll,
And all for which we love our noble land
Shall fight beside and through US, sea and strand,
me heart of woman, and her hand,
Tree, fruit, and flower, and every influence,
Gentle, or grave, or grand.
The winds in our defence
Shall seem to blow to us the hills shall lend
Their tirmness and their cam;
And in our stitfened sinews we shall blend
The strength of pine and palm!
LOOK where we will, we cannot find ground
For any mournful song:
Gall up the clashing elements around
And test the right and wrong!
On one side, pledges broken, creeds that lie,
religion sunk in vague philosophy,
Empty professions, Pharisaic leayen,
Souls that would sell their birthright in the skv
Z hiianthroplsts who pass the beggar by,
AND laws which controvert the laws of Heaven!
anu on Inc other-first, righteous cause!
Truth, Bible reverence, charitable wealth,
AND Tor the poor and humble, laws which give,
Not the mean right to buy the right to i've
But life, and home, and health.
TO doubt the issue were distrust in Cod
II in His Providence He hath decreed
That to the peace for which we pray,
Through the Red Sea of War must lie our way.
Donbt not, oh brothers, we shall find at need
Moses with his rod
But let our fears--if fears we have-be still.
And turn US to the future Could we climb
Some mighty Alp, and view the coming time
The rapturous sight would fill
Our eyes with happy tears!
Not only for the glores which the years
Shall bring u.s. not for lands from sea to sea,
And wealth, and power, and peace, though these
shall be:
3ut for the distant peoples we shall bless,
And the hushed murmurs of worlds distress:
For to give labor to the poor
The whole sad planet DER,
md save from want and crime its humblest human
door,
s one among the many ends for which
God makes US great and rich
The hour perchance is not yet wholly ripe
When all shall own it, but behold the type
)f what we are and shall be to the rest
)f the broad earth, in our own gulf expressed,
Which through the cold untempered ocean pours
is genial stream, that far off Arctic shores
lay sometimes catch upon the softened breeze
strange tropic warmth and hints of summer seas