The Chattanooga Daily Rebel

Here is a poem full of terse, spirited strength. It is said by the Enquirer to have been written by a lady from Tennessee—sent by her to N. P. Willis, to be read to Lincoln, which was done, and then afterwards printed in the Home Journal,

You can never win them back,
Never! never!
Though they perish on the track
Of your endeavour.
Though their carcasses strew the earth
Which smiled upon their birth
And blood pollutes each hearth-stone—
Forever!

They have risen to a man—
Stern and fearless—
Of your curses and your ban
They are careless.
Every hand is on its knife,
Every gun is primed for strife,
Every palm contains a life—
High and peerless.

You have no such blood as their's
For the shedding:
In the veins of cavaliers
Was its heading.
You have no such stately men
In your abolition den
To march thro' foe and fen
Nothing dreading.

They may fall before the breath
Of your legions—
Paid with gold—mercenary hire—
Base allegiance—
But for every drop you shed
You will have ten thousand dead,
And the vultures shall be fed
In our regions.

The battle to the strong
Is not given:
While the Judge of right and wrong
Sits in Heaven.
And the God of David still
Guides the people with his will
They are giants yet to kill—
Wrongs unshriven.