 | The Writings of Bret Harte |  |
THE FLAG-STAFF ON SHACKLEFORD ISLAND
AN INCIDENT OF THE WAR
[The following incident was related in a recent lecture by the Rev. A. L. Stone, Pastor, Park Street Church, Boston: “In the early part of the war there stood on Shackleford Island, North Carolina, a high flag-staff from which floated the national banner. Of course, the secessionists soon tore this down. But there still surmounted the staff the national eagle. This was too loyal for the traitors, and after a time they succeeded in getting it down or breaking it off. Their work was hardly finished, when lo! the air quivered with the rush of lordly wings, and a majestic eagle swept down and lighted on the staff. In a few minutes the marksmen sent bullet after bullet at the royal mark. In vain. His piercing eye looked at them defiant; he rose, circled round a few feet, and settled again on his perch.”]
On Shackleford Island a flagstaff rose,
And a flag that flew,
Loyal and true,
Over the heads of disloyal foes.
Sullen they gazed, but did not speak,
Till the flap of each fold,
Like a buffet bold,
Crimsoned with shame each traitor's cheek.
Was the cry their hatred found at last;
And they tore it down
And over the town
Trailed the flag they had stripped from the mast.
False in one thing, false in the whole”;
So they battered down
The flag-staff's crown—
The Eagle crest of the liberty pole.
Came the rush of wings, and around the base
Of the flag-staff played
A circling shade,
And the real bird swooped to the emblem's place.
The curse and the rifle shot went up.
Not a feather stirred
Of the royal bird
In his lonely perch on the flag-staff top.
Clothed in beauty the staff is set;
Since that day
The bird alway
Guards the spot that is sacred yet.
Broken, we look through our despair
To the sky that brings
The rush of wings
And the Truth that dwells in the upper air.
| The Writings of Bret Harte | |