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Legends of St Johns
Legends and Memories of St John's Chapel - Addressed to R. A. Riddick by Major John W. Moore Part V - published in the Windsor Ledger July20, 1899 [from Author's draft in Southern Historical Collection, Chapel Hill, NC - this particular issue also missing from microfilm by NC Archives]
Dear old St Johns, we love thee
For the happy days of old
The World and all its charming
Can not make us now withold
Age is sure to wed its sorrow
While youth awaits the coming morrow.
So in this ruined hamlet
I find oft type of myself
Once my life seemed a Treck Nick
Now outworn and on the shelf
I can find now humbler baho,
In life's spacious arena
As I recall many blessings
Ever growing scarcer
Wishing lowly for that great change
Which our future will soon arrange.
Like a stately water-oak
Which is growing broad and fair
Close beside my former home
And has been to me so dear
How we prized it with its vastly
Shaddows which the Pee Wee love
And twas secret to gaze up at Even
Upon limbs, which towered above
There still it stands, in magesty
Long may it shelter mine and me.
Here where eight generations
Of our family have dwelt
Was my birth place still beloved
Then imagine how I've felt
As I behold my home of yore
Standing closed and still and lost
Fitting place for the owls and bats
And a residence for ghosts
This world may be a fleeting show
But still we cower to find it so.
I still recall my mother
As I knew her first so fair
Old people often told me
That they never knew a pair
Like my parents in their youth
So loving and so gentle
If friend you can write the truth
They went through life lovingly
As if no fault could either see.
The old house thronged with children
And with visitors by scores
Indeed it did sometimes seem
That we lived with open doors
With horses in the stable
Bird and fox dogs in the yard
We had plenty of amusement
Would I were but such a bard
So I could write in proper lays
Some noble rhyme to give it praise.
Ah what Times we had when night
Shut out all the cares of day
When we went to the parlor
And the music came in play
Can I e'er forget that singing
When my sisters led the choir
And my soul on wings of gladness
Felt the sweetness and the fire
Of men who told in deathless, strain,
The Joy of heaven and sorrows pain.
And again there were the evenings
When we mingled in the dance
There were maidens all dainty
Wits wary at kindling glows
Ah those maids are now all malvou
Except those who sleep in graves,
And after their partners then so gay
Some on land, some on the wave,
Soon were battling against a foe
That ere long brought us all to woe.
It is then that times of sadness
Course on us like all the world
Now and then our flags of gladness
Were removed and closely furled.
There were children fair as angels,
That we buried out of sight.
There were tides of grief and anguish
As we walked awhile in night
But we left them with the Master
Who so cheer our worst disaster.
And no country ever sent
A nobler array to the field
One more resolved to never yield
From little Hertford County
Seven companies were sent
Here you get some idea
Of the mighty achievement
That went from the calumned people
Perhaps in all Christendom
People who of all most peaceful
And averse to fife and drink
Who loved to live without offense
And thought all war oppose to sense.
We were five brothers, neighbor
To the array then went four
Tom resigned from the Navy
And with his southward home
A northern comrade, who strangly
Cash his fortunes all with us
Poor Tim Fiske how great a pitty
He mistook his interest
For he and Tom both went to sea
And stayed till all their league? did flee.
Old St John was dim good neighbor
Oft a scene of merriment
Downturn went frequent muster
And children we often went
To secure the men we needed
To fill out our muster roll.
And then old place overmore lively
Now at election polls,
Saw as many voters gathered there
So now were men to volunteer.
The whole county seemed a camp
For soldiers were everywhere
They swarmed in the village,
Was the weather foul or fair
The drill master still at dark
Work on with their raw recruits
And the battle field soon after
Shower what were the timely fruits
Of the slow disgusting trifles
That fit men to handle rifles.
In the wide opinion contagian
It was so that even girls
Were now and then seen drilling
In their furbelows and culls
And the mothers cries and looing
As sir, seen in any age
Were so moved with love of country
And that fire her in rage
That boys, they looed on everything
Then gladly made free offering.
It was a wonder neighbor
How our people who had been
So calm and free of passion
While a hope of peace was seen
Yet when the dreadful truth reached us
That at last war had begun
And that down in Charleston harbor
The first battle had been won
Then it was wonderous, sir, to see
That such a change could ever be.
The men who had been silent
Or opposed to Southern views
Became loudest mouthed seceder
On reception of the news
And our women for God bless them
Were each and every one
So enthused with Southern ardor
And to such lengths were gone
That not a youth they disgust to hear
Until he was a volunteer.
Indeed I knew an instance
Of a toady gallant then
Who had been long a leader
Among the more modest men
With his many small attentions
To the damsels all around
But he wouldn't be a soldier
So they sent him then a gown
The very girls he doted on
Sent him this token of their scorn.
It was wondrous then to see
How all parties sects and cues
Were aflowe with resolute
Determination for such deeds
As would show forth come weal or woe
How what we were but to all men
How a people who was fearless
Could their rights and houses defend
Leaving to God whatever might be
And fight until they shall be free.
When down in good old Bertie
Jaycocks and his merry men
Had barely got to Yorktown
Ere from Hertford we did send
Tom Sharp with his company
To meet down at Hatteras
The first onset of our foemen
When upon us there at last
They came with all their mighty mo?
And broke the good fence of our coast.
Then it was a stirring scene
From the mountains to the sea
The multitudes uprising
And resolving to be free
Fifteen myriads of soldiers
From our boarders gladly went
To uphold the Southern banner.
What a time they had Robert
Those good women in those days
How shall we ever pay them
Or give them such need of praise
As belonged to unselfish use
And the loss of all we prize
To execute what duty says
Though the soul in anguish lies
Such were those Apollee, pure Southern wives
Who so adorn and bless our lives.
I shall never forget the time
When I left my own fair home
And after in the army
How often the thought would come
Of what there was to them befalling
The dear ones so far away
It was then I spent good neighbor
Many a dreary night and day
Till news would come that all was right
And then we turned to thought of fight.
I often looked upon these
On the many hundreds slain
Poor fellows lying silent
There upon the bloody plain
What madness could have bought us here
To this, take each others lives,
Good men perhaps, and at their homes
Had their children too and wives,
And yet are who had never met
Were there on bloody mission set.
I wished the war was over
And that never more again
I should see another battle
With heaps of good men slain.
That men of sense would conjure
Some other means of settlement
And leave unto brutish beasts
The falsely called arbitrament,
Which in the balance costs
Only the heaviest armament
Which oft the right to death is sent.
next
(cannot determine with certainty just how he hung the verses together) (will be adding part 6 when I decipher my great grandfather's hand)
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part 6 |
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back to Mulberry Grove
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