GRAVES
FOR THE INVADERS.
A FRAGMENT.
Graves for the invaders! graves
Scoop’d from the reeking sod—
Room for these Northern knaves
Deep in the soil they’ve trod!
Greet them to Southern plains—
Give all—best lost than won,—
Contagious to fire their veins
Bred of our Southern sun!
Ye foul Abolition crew,
You’ve rent each bond of yore
Which our fathers pledged with you—
Now sundered evermore,
By our blacken’d roof-tree beams;—
Our door-step’s bloody stains;—
By our women’s frantic screams;—
Our children’s scattered brains!
By our old ancestral trees,
Uprooted, torn, shell-riv’n;
By the murder-tainted breeze
Foul from your hellish heav’n!
By our desolated lands;—
Our father’s trodden graves;
By the knives placed in the hands
Of our once happy slaves!
Think ye that the South is won
By the five-mile mortar shell?
By the long-range rifled gun—
The range you love so well?
No! we’ll draw you toe to heel,
Our blades are crimson gilt;
One grip of true Southern steel—
Distance—from point to hilt!
Thou vile Northern chiffonier—
Home calv’d or flung from sea;
Oh, shame, that our cavalier
Must sully his sword with thee!
