Analysis of Ethnogenesis
Henry Timrod 1828 (Charleston) – 1867 (Columbia)
Written During the Meeting of the First Southern Congress, at Montgomery,
February, 1861
Hath not the morning dawned with added light?
And shall not evening call another star
Out of the infinite regions of the night,
To mark this day in Heaven? At last, we are
A nation among nations; and the world
Shall soon behold in many a distant port
Another flag unfurled!
Now, come what may, whose favor need we court?
And, under God, whose thunder need we fear?
Thank Him who placed us here
Beneath so kind a sky -- the very sun
Takes part with us; and on our errands run
All breezes of the ocean; dew and rain
Do noiseless battle for us; and the Year,
And all the gentle daughters in her train,
March in our ranks, and in our service wield
Long spears of golden grain!
A yellow blossom as her fairy shield,
June flings her azure banner to the wind,
While in the order of their birth
Her sisters pass, and many an ample field
Grows white beneath their steps, till now, behold,
Its endless sheets unfold
THE SNOW OF SOUTHERN SUMMERS! Let the earth
Rejoice! beneath those fleeces soft and warm
Our happy land shall sleep
In a repose as deep
As if we lay intrenched behind
Whole leagues of Russian ice and Arctic storm!
And what if, mad with wrongs themselves have wrought,
In their own treachery caught,
By their own fears made bold,
And leagued with him of old,
Who long since in the limits of the North
Set up his evil throne, and warred with God --
What if, both mad and blinded in their rage,
Our foes should fling us down their mortal gage,
And with a hostile step profane our sod!
We shall not shrink, my brothers, but go forth
To meet them, marshaled by the Lord of Hosts,
And overshadowed by the mighty ghosts
Of Moultrie and of Eutaw -- who shall foil
Auxiliars such as these? Nor these alone,
But every stock and stone
Shall help us; but the very soil,
And all the generous wealth it gives to toil,
And all for which we love our noble land,
Shall fight beside, and through us; sea and strand,
The heart of woman, and her hand,
Tree, fruit, and flower, and every influence,
Gentle, or grave, or grand;
The winds in our defence
Shall seem to blow; to us the hills shall lend
Their firmness and their calm;
And in our stiffened sinews we shall blend
The strength of pine and palm!
Nor would we shun the battle-ground,
Though weak as we are strong;
Call up the clashing elements around,
And test the right and wrong!
On one side, creeds that dare to teach
What Christ and Paul refrained to preach;
Codes built upon a broken pledge,
And Charity that whets a poniard's edge;
Fair schemes that leave the neighboring poor
To starve and shiver at the schemer's door,
While in the world's most liberal ranks enrolled,
He turns some vast philanthropy to gold;
Religion, taking every mortal form
But that a pure and Christian faith makes warm,
Where not to vile fanatic passion urged,
Or not in vague philosophies submerged,
Repulsive with all Pharisaic leaven,
And making laws to stay the laws of Heaven!
And on the other, scorn of sordid gain,
Unblemished honor, truth without a stain,
Faith, justice, reverence, charitable wealth,
And, for the poor and humble, laws which give,
Not the mean right to buy the right to live,
But life, and home, and health!
To doubt the end were want of trust in God,
Who, if he has decreed
That we must pass a redder sea
Than that which rang to Miriam's holy glee,
Will surely raise at need
A Moses with his rod!
But let our fears -- if fears we have -- be still,
And turn us to the future! Could we climb
Some mighty Alp, and view the coming time,
The rapturous sight would fill
Our eyes with happy tears!
Not only for the glories which the years
Shall bring us; not for lands from sea to sea,
And wealth, and power, and peace, though these shall be;
But for the distant peoples we shall bless,
And the hushed murmurs of a world's distress:
For, to give labor to the poor,
The whole sad planet o'er,
And save from want and crime the humblest door,
Is one among the many ends for which
God makes us great and rich!
The hour perchance is not yet wholly ripe
When all shall own it, but the type
Whereby we shall be known in every land
Is that vast gulf which lips our Southern strand,
And through the cold, untempered ocean pours
Its genial streams, that far off Arctic shores
May sometimes catch upon the softened breeze
Strange tropic warmth and h
Scheme | Text too long |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101001010110101010 100 1101011101 0111010101 11010010101 11110101111 0100110001 11010100101 010101 1111110111 0101110111 111111 0111010101 11110110101 1101010101 111011001 0101010001 101010010101 111101 0101010101 1101010101 10010111 01010101101 1101111101 110101 0111010101 0101110101 1010111 000111 1111101 1111010101 0111110111 0111001 111111 011111 1110010101 1111010111 1111010011 10111111101 01010101101 1111110111 1111010111 001010101 110011111 11111101 1100101 11110101 01010011111 01111110101 1101011101 01110001 110100100100 101111 0101001 1111110111 110011 0010101111 011101 11110101 111111 1101010001 010101 11111111 11010111 11010101 010011011 111101001 110101011 10011100101 1111010011 01010100101 1101010111 1111010101 1101010001 01011110 01011101110 0101011101 0101010101 11010010001 0101010111 1011110111 110101 1101011101 111101 11110101 111111101 110111 010111 11101111111 0111010111 1101010101 0100111 1011101 1101010101 1111111111 01010011111 1101010111 0011010101 11110101 0111010 01110101001 1101010111 111101 01001111101 11111101 01111101001 11111110101 01011101 1101111101 1011010101 110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 4,268 |
Words | 816 |
Sentences | 20 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 2, 29, 27, 30, 23 |
Lines Amount | 111 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 684 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 162 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 02, 2023
- 4:06 min read
- 96 Views
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"Ethnogenesis" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18227/ethnogenesis>.
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