The South is a land that has known
sorrows; it is a land that has broken the
ashen crust and moistened it with tears;
a land scarred and riven by the plowshare
of war and billowed with the graves of her
dead; but a land of legend, a land of song,
a land of hallowed and heroic memories.
To that land every drop of my blood,
every fibre of my being, every pulsation
of my heart, is consecrated forever.
I was born of her womb; I was nurtured
at her breast; and when my last hour shall
come, I pray God that I may be pillowed
upon her bosom and rocked to sleep within
her tender and encircling arms.
Edward Ward Carmack 1858 - 1908