In the midst of his children's children, by the home-fire's cheerful blaze,
An old man sat in an easy chair, dreaming of by-gone days;
Dreaming of wearisome marches, by flood, morass and wold;
Where many a brave heart fainted with hunger, and thirst, and cold;
Dreaming of midnight watches in the dreary drizzling rain,
And the hum of his comrades voices, that he never should hear again;
Of the smouldering fires of the bivouac, the sentinel's measured tread,
The smoke and roar of the battle, and the faces of the dead;
Of the fair young son of his neighbor, who fought and fell by his side,
And the sacred message he gave him to his girl-love when he died.
He saw the face of the maiden grow as cold as death, and as pale,
As he sat by her father's hearthstone and told her the cruel tale.
" Ay, ay! " in his sleep he murmured, " she was fair and he was brave,
But she faded away like a blossom, and we made him a soldier's grave.
But we routed the British legions and sent them over the sea,
For the God of battles helped us, and our native land was free.
My children, I have been dreaming a dream that gave me pain:
I thought I was young, and a soldier fighting for Freedom again.
I saw the tents and the banners, and the shining ranks of the foe,
And the crimson tracks our poor recruits left on the frozen snow.
But is it true, this rumor, or only an idle tale?
Do they talk of dissolving the Union? Ah, well may your cheek grow pale;
And well may an old man tremble, and his heart beat faint and low,
When he thinks of the price it cost us some four-score years ago!
I have watched its growing greatness through a life of many years,
But I never forgot that its blessings were purchased with blood and tears
I never forgot the privations of four-score years ago,
When the naked feet of our poor recruits left crimson tracks in the snow.
I never forgot their faces, and I seem to see them still,
Who looked straight into the face of death at the battle of Bunker's Hill.
And so the home of Marion is first to break the band,
That bound the beautiful sisterhood of our beloved land;
The children of the heroes around whose memory clings
The glory of King's Mountain, Cowpens and Eutaw Springs?
I saw our blessed banner, with its white and crimson bars,
When fair South Carolina was one of the thirteen stars;
And if ever that constellation is marred or rent in twain,
It would blast the sight of these poor old eyes to see its folds again.
If God has forsaken our country, the only boon I crave
Is that He will delay its ruin till I have gone down to the grave;
For I could not breathe with traitors, nor turn my face to the sun,
Nor dwell in the land of the living, when these States are no longer one. "