Probably the most ardent of Southern poets, Henry Timrod, here writes iii lot'tv calm of his native city awaiting the attack of Admiral Samuel F. Dupont on April 7, 1863. The poem forms an interesting contrast with the preceding, written two years previously.
Calm as that second summer which precedes
The first fall of the snow.
In the broad sunlight of heroic deeds.
The city bides the foe.
* I sed by permission of the 15. F. Johnson Publishing Company, Richmond, Virginia, publishers of the Memorial Edition of the "Poems of Henry Timrod. "
THE CITY BIDES THK FOE"
The picture of < Confederate artillerymen sighting a Beld-piece in the outskirts of Charleston shows that there were active preparations for the expected attack. Tin- city had, indeed, been put in a thorough state of defense by ( General Beauregard, who had assumed command on September [5, 1862. The forts at the entrance to the harbor were strengthened or partly rebuilt, and the waters sown with torpedoes and obstructions. The poet therefore had good reason for awaiting so calmly the naval attack of April T, 18G3. In the lower photograph, St. Michael's and the principal street of ( Charleston are preserved for us by the Confederate photographer ( look, just as they appeared when Timrod wrote his lines. The city was indeed a very busy one, for constant blockade-running had brought in ample munitions .if war and many luxuries. It was no idle boast that Summer was brought to her courts, for silks and spices came in with every cargo. Later on. the blockading fleet, though it did not succeed in reducing ( Charleston, made blockade-running so dangerous that a constantly decreasing number of laden vessels arrived at the piers.
THROUGH STREETS STILL ECHOING WITH TRADE
CHARLESTON IN WAB TIME
As yet, behind their ramparts, stein and prom
Her bolted thunders sleep,-
Dark Sumter, like a battlemented cloud,
1 ,ooms o'er the solemn deep.
No Calpe frowns from lofty cliff or scaur
To guard the holy strand;
But Moultrie holds in leash her dogs of war
Above the level sand.
And down the dimes a thousand nuns lie couched,
Unseen, beside the flood, —
Like tigers in some Orient jungle crouched,
That wait and wateh for blood.
Meanwhile, through streets still echoing with trade.
Walk grave and thoughtful men.
Whose hands may one day wield the patriot's blade
As lightly as the pen.
And maidens, with such eyes as would grow dim
Over a bleeding hound.
Seem each one to have caught the strength of him
Whose sword she sadly bound.
Thus girt without and garrisoned at home.
Day patient following day.
Old Charleston looks from roof and spire and dome.
Across her tranquil bay.
Ships, through a hundred foes, from Saxon lands
And spicy Indian ports,
Bring Saxon steel and iron to her hands.
And summer to her courts.
But still, along yon dim Atlantic line.
The only hostile smoke
Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine,
From some frail floating oak.
"SHE WAITS THE TRIUMPH <>!{ THE TOMB"
THE BOMBARDKD GRAVEYARD OK THE CENTRAL CHURCH AT CHARLESTON
The event awaited by Timrod with faith and resignation is here directly illustrated. A sacred spot in the beautiful city of Charleston has Ik-™ visited by Federal bombs The tombs of its honored ancestors lie shattered where the ruins of fair mansions look down upon the scene. The cannonading that wrought this havoc was conducted l>y the Federal army under General 0 A. Gillmore after the failure of Admiral S F Du Pont's attack of April 7. 1868 The bombardment of the city was begun on August 21, lsi;:i. by the famous gun. the "Swamp Angel." to enforce the evacuation of Fort Sumter Hut Sumter, though reduced to a shapeless mass of ruins, did not surrender. On September 7. 1868, however, Gillmore succeeded in capturing Battery Wagner and Battery Gregg, on the northern part of Morris Island. One .in pounder Parrott gun sent 4..V2:? shells toward the city, many of them landing within it destructively,
Shall the spring dawn, and she, still clad in smiles,
And with an unscathed brow,
Rest in the strong anus of her palm-crowned isles,
As fair and free as now?
We know not; in the temple of the Fates
God has inscribed her doom:
And. all untroubled in her faith, she waits
The triumph or the tomb.
Henry Timrod.