War poets of the South and Confederate camp-fire songs.

What! ye hold yourselves as freemen?
Tyrants love just such as ye!
Go! abate your lofty manner!
Write upon the State's old banner:
"A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine!"

Sink before the Federal altar,
Each one low, on bended knee,
Pray, with lips that sob and falter,
This prayer from the coward's psalter:
"A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine!"

But ye hold that quick repentance
In the Northern mind will be;
This repentance comes no sooner
Than the robber's did, at Luna!
"A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine!"

He repented him:—the Bishop
Gave him absolution free;
Poured upon him sacred chrysm,
In the pomp of his baptism;
"A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine!"

He repented-then he sickened!
Was he pining for the sea?
In extremis was he shriven,
The viaticum was given,
"A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine!"

Then the old cathedral's choir
Took the plaintive minor key;
With the Host upraised before him,
Down the marble aisles they bore him;
"A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine!"

While the Bishop and the Abbot—
All the monks of high degree—
Chanting praise to the Madonna,
Came to do him Christian honor!
"A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine!"

Now the miserere's cadence
Takes the voices of the sea,
As the music-billows quiver,
See the dead freebooter shiver!
"A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine!"

Is it that these intonations
Thrill him thus from head to knee?
Lo, his cerements burst asunder,
'Tis a sight of fear and wonder!
"A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine!"

Fierce he stands before the Bishop,
Dark as shape of Destiny;
Hark! a shriek ascends, appalling—
Down the prelate goes—dead—falling!
"A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine!"

Hastings lives! He was but feigning!
What! Repentant? Never he!
Down he smites the priests and friars,
And the city lights with fires!
"A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine!"

Ah! the children and the maidens,
'Tis in vain they strive to flee!
Where the white-haired priests lie bleeding
Is no place for woman's pleading.
"A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine!"

Louder swells the frightful tumult—
Pallid Death holds revelry!
Dies the organ's mighty clamor
By the Norseman's iron hammer!
"A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine!"

So they thought that he'd repented!
Had they nailed him to the tree,
He had not deserved their pity,
And they had not—lost their city.
"A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine!"

For the moral in this story,
Which is plain as truth can be:
If we trust the North's relenting,
We shall shriek—too late repenting.
"A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine!"

University of Virginia Library

"LIBERA NOS O DOMINE."