Money Quotes

IV

But let our fears – if fears we have – be still,
And turn us to the future! Could we climb
Some Alp in though, and view the coming time,
We should indeed behold a sight to fill
Our eyes with happy tears!
Not for the glories which a hundred 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 food and clothing to the poor,
The whole sad planet o’er,
And save from crime its humblest human door,
Our mission is! The hour is not yet ripe
When all shall see it, but behold the type
Of what we are and shall be to the world,
In our own grand and genial Gulf stream furled,
Which through the vast and colder ocean pours
Its waters, so that far-off Arctic shores
May sometimes catch upon the softened breeze
Strange tropic warmth and hints of summer seas.

- Henry Timrod¹

1. From Ethnogenesis in Songs and Ballads of the Southern People. 1861-1865, pg. 13-14; Originally written on the occasion of the meeting of the Confederate Congress, at Montgomery, February 4, 1861, and published in the “Charleston Courier.” [↩]