Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1879-05-23
The Southern Heart Fired Again.

THE Southern heart has been fired
again. This time, us before, by the
OkOlona States, through the medium of
a poem, written by one of the editors of
that paper, and read by another at
convention of the Mississippi Press AS
sociation at Vicksburg. The poem is
entitled Southland and is full of
that red-hot rhetoric which Mr.. Wat
terson says is characteristic of the
Southern people, only in this case the
rhetoric is more bombastic and turgid
than usual, as always happens when a
Southern editor drops into rhyming.
He commences his "pome" with an
apostrophe to Southland, which is de-
scribed as :" the land most passionate
this side the gates of Paradise" He
stops for moment to gush over d" its
immemorial hills' and '' the rose lights
of their raptured hights,'' the d" crash
and wirble (P) jubilant'' of its cataracts,
its wild roses with "scarlet mists of
bloom" " sunlike lily bells with amber
hearts," "miracle magnolia flowers
like fallen moOns," and other equally
remarkable specimens of vegetation;
but it is only for a moment, for all this
reminds him that the Southland is the
cradle of jefferson Davis, " kDightliest
one"
Whose name, whose high. white name, will
shine and circle with the sun
Until humanity. no more its IMMoRTELLEs
will tWine,
Nor offer up bright vOtive blood at freedoms
altar-shrinc!
From Jefferson Davis our poet passes
to the War of the Rebellion, which was
inaugurated to uphold " truths divine
that never die, lin point of fact, the
same truths "our sires with battle
fires baptized in years of yore." As he
approaches the field of battle, our poet
lets himself out in manner that has
not before been equaled, except by the
extraordinary flight of Our Carter's
eagle. Here is specimen of the
"fierce, remorseless canticle that rings
leaping from my Tyre"
Our warriors were fired by all the Lord holds
leal,
By all that makes life beautiful, by all that
makes men blessed,
BY that duty the diVinest: to uphold the com
mon veal,
And sacrifice the hearts red blood for broth
erhood oppressed.
In the white, shining track of Lee-that Ru-
pert of his race
They followed with unnagging feet, pre-
pal ed to dree and die,
Through crash of shells, and storms of flame
that smOte them in the face,
While high their glorious Rebel Yell rang
grandly up the sky;
While high through binding cannon smoke
the Southern Cross uphung
Its blazing folds more terrible than Battle
flag of Thor
While roared red-throated rifles, and the sabres
slashed and swung
To the wild, magnetic music of the thunder
drums of War.
He then tunes his Tyre to a regretful
strain, for
There befell tristful day the Southern Cross
went down
Before the Hessian hirelings from every
shore and sea
The Hessian hirellngs who fight for any flag or
crown,
And trample in the very dust the White
Rose of the Free,
Then came our cruel Iliad of wraths and
wrongs; we saw
Our peoplehoOd defowered OF their birth
rights one by one,
What time the vile victor made his Chrstless
creed our law,
And ruled our ruined Motherland with help
OF gyve and gun.
The poet then falls into a spiritual
istic mood, and has u seance with the
spirits of the departed rebels whom he
finds by the clear, calm streams of
Paradise" and in the "Citadels of
Christ" They send the following
message to the Mississippi editors in
Convention assembled;
Rings the trump THE drum is beating =
No retracting mo retreating =
Ye must tread the straight, white pathway
that thy pure, proud martyrs trod,
Teaching thus unto the fOeman,
That ye truckle unto no man,
That thy Birthland knows no MASTER save the
one Great Master-Godl
Up! and from thy statutes sever,
With firm, swift hand forever,
All the laws antagonistic TO thine august
laws of old
Strike for States Rights this thy mission
Till it finds full fruitiOn-
Let the Blessings of the Ballot by Caucasians
be controlled.
1t is but truth to say that the Missis-
sippi editors were all stirred up, not
only by the particular message TO them
from the " citadels of Christ" but by
the whole poem. The OkolOna States
itself thinks it full of passionate pa
triotism. The Columbus Democrat
says it was thrilled through and
through. The Corinth COrinthiGn says
its blood was at boiling heat of patriot
ism and devotion to its unfortunate
land. The West Point Echo says that
its blood fairly leaped through its
veins; and the Jackson Clarion was so
thoroughly moved by the "afliatus of
the themen that it blew terrific blast
Pat the North.
In view of this rhetorical demonstra-
ton and the alarming condition of the
Mississippi editors, we once more urge
upon Mr.. Watterson the necessity for
the establishment in the South of a
university for tuition in mathematics
and the exact sciences. We cannot
believe that he is pleased with this
rhetorical ranting or that he indorses
its sentiments; and we are sure that