University of Virginia Library

The waves grow white, the forest trees
Are bent before the rising breeze;
Sharp lightnings flash, the slanting rain
Courses along the thirsty plain,
Where languid leaf and drooping flower
Rejoicing meet the genial shower;
While blended all the landscape lies
In misty earth and streaming skies;
And startled flock and silent bird,
The shivering horse, the scattered herd,
To fold or copse for shelter flee;
To open shed, or spreading tree.
Yet dauntlessly a tiny sail
Of dingy canvas courts the gale,
And faster hurries, as the mast
Bends lower to the sweeping blast;
And ever, too, the oarsmen ply
Their paddles as the breezes die,
Or flaws in adverse eddies meet,
And strike aback the shivering sheet.

Up Cooper's stream the vessel speeds,
By marshes, flags, and brakes of reeds,
By cypress wood and gloomy pine,
The live-oak and the mantling vine,
The ash and tulip blossomed tree,
The jessamine's wild fragrancy,
And beech, of bark so smooth and fair,
It tempts the hunter posted there,
Or idler's ready knife, to trace
The loved initials on its face.

Still hasting on, the crew invokes
The wind, by Hagan's point of oaks,
And fitfully where breezes blow,
By Strawberry or Pimlico;
They weather Mepkins' marly height,
Pass grove and villa in their flight,
Round Pawley's bend securely wind,
Leave ferry, farm and hall behind.

Yet on, with flowing winds and tides,
From early dawn the shallop glides;
Till now that in the crimson west,
Enrobed in clouds of gorgeous dyes,
The Sun, departing, sinks to rest,
With promise of serener skies;
The labor of the day is o'er,
The sharp prow sinks in the shore,
The helmsman, from his weary hand
Casts off the sheet and leaps to land,
And from the awning-place, with care
The sable boatmen gently bear
A pale, disabled Cavalier.
Disabled for the strife of swords,
He leaves the leaguered town, to find
The rest his forest home affords
For shattered frame and fretted mind;
Where no unfriendly foot intrudes,
Among his native solitudes,
He seeks the health their scenes supply
Of balmy air and placid sky;
Nursed there by ready hands that gave
Their anxious cares to shield the brave,
With woman's smile to cheer and bless,
Her healing hand of tenderness,
And watchful eye, secure he lies,
Revolves the future enterprise,
And forms, in fancy, for the foe,
The subtle scheme, the sudden blow,
The ambush and the sharp defeat,
The silent march, the sure retreat,
And every keen and crafty plan
That marks the matchless partisan;
While on his couch, in torture tost,
He mourns the venture rashly lost,
The fallen town, the captive host;
And longs for health and strength restored,
To draw again the avenging sword.

For now on Ashley's distant shore,
The din of war is heard no more;
Low lies the patriot's flag, the band
That battled for their native land
On Thaddock's point, a captive host,
No longer guard their country's coast,
Or pent in jail or prison-ship,
With frenzied eye and livid lip,
In fever's wild excitement crave,
And find a refuge in the grave.

Nor was the Briton's fury shown
In cruel wrongs to men alone;
His meaner and unmanly rage
Was wreaked on infancy and age,
With reckless and relentless hand
He gave the homestead to the brand,
And in the homeless child and wife
Made war upon the yeoman's life,
A base, ignoble, brutal strife.

In vain on Camden's luckless plain
Gates tried the chance of war again:
Not his the lot of deathless fame—
The fierce marauding bands to tame,
Repel them from their track of gore
And drive them to their island shore.
Inglorious in the hopeless fight,
Dishonored in the craven flight,
He left DeKalb's great heart to stain
The field with crimson streams in vain.
Stores, cannon lost, a scattered few
Still flying fast where none pursue,
Beneath the fiery August sky
Withered and sere his laurels lie;
And with the luckless Chief's, anew
The country's hopes seem withered too.