Best Antebellum Poems
I walk the lane 'neath giant oaks,
vast canopies of green,
and view the mansion at path's end,
a sight I've never seen.
My mind begins to picture
those precious days of old,
the owner of this grand house
with history yet foretold.
Of Southern Belles in ball gowns,
young men in dapper dress,
music of the harpsichord
as folks poseur their best.
Dancing, singing, merriment
revere lives without care
as servants carry laden trays
of fancy food and fare.
But all the glories of this time
were soon to be forgot
with civil war uprisings,
and horrors that men wrought.
Land was scourged, mansions burned,
or plundered of their ware,
soldiers stripped the wealth from them
and pillaged without care.
"The black man needs his freedom,"
was the battle cry,
and thousands chose to take a side
for which they'd surely die.
Brother fought 'gainst brother,
father against son,
I wonder if they felt for naught
when the war was done.
Now standing 'neath the foliage
at this mansion tall and grand,
I question, "Was it worth it,
for them to take a stand?"
Guess we'll never know the answer,
today it seems too late,
but let us long remember
what happens when men hate.
I knew the hush of white verandas,
Where time lay soft as fading lace,
And magnolias bent like women dreaming
In their slow, untroubled grace.
The river held its silver rumor,
The fields wore gold without a sound,
And all the clocks of earth were gentle,
With no sorrow found.
Yet somewhere beyond the singing distance
A darker wind began to start—
A whisper moving through the cedars,
A fracture running through the heart.
I did not see the hands that labored,
Nor hear the breaking of the day;
Only the light, too calm, too perfect,
As truth was kept away.
Now memory is a haunted parlor,
Where portraits stare with patient eyes—
And every rose that once was gardened
Still learns too late what silence hides.
The Finest Antebellum Mansion in the South
By Elton Camp
Windsor was near the banks of the Mississippi River
Extreme luxury, size, beauty and comfort it did deliver
The manor was completed just before the Civil War
It’s builder, Smith Daniell, couldn’t asked for more
Only a few weeks after his palatial home was complete
Its wealthy owner became ill and his own death did meet
His heirs were left a four-story house & a huge plantation
It depended on slave labor that was ruining the nation
Windsor had twenty-five rooms, each with a fireplace
And running water and inside baths the house did grace
A rare feature indeed: that two dumbwaiters were found
From floor-to-floor more easily to move the food around
A ballroom on the fourth floor had an observatory atop
The rigors of a civil war threatened to bring it to a stop
It came to be used by rebs and yanks, so it did survive
And the family who owned it managed to stay alive
The mansion become a social center for the entire state
Invited guests arrived early, partied and the stayed late
But, in 1890 to Windsor the greatest disaster then befell
A guest left a lighted cigar on the balcony and it then fell
After the fire, only the thirty-foot-high columns did stand
And an architectural treasure disappeared from the land
The magnificent ruins remind of the South’s glorious past
And that no civilization built on human suffering can last
If a glimpse into the way planters lived you wish to see,
Go only a few miles from Port Gibson and there it will be
The ruins will remind us of some ancient Grecian temple
But built at the expense of slaves kept uneducated & simple
For pictures of the mansion go to http://www.scribd.com/doc/57710764/The-Finest-
Antebellum-Mansion-in-the-South
The picture of the ruins was taken years ago by the noted
writer Eudora Welty of Jackson, Mississippi. Some of the
English faculty at my college actually knew Eudora and had
studied under her at various workshops.
Prologue
Abandoned and in disrepair the mansion
Is dark now; a story behind every stanchion.
An unwitting monument to a way of life,
Since foreclosed through bloody civil strife.
Antebellum
The hush of summer evenings cued the trilling
(Fiddled on hind legs accompanied by warty pouches)
Chorus; pierced only by the discordant creaking
Of unseen stairs rising to the house slave's quarters
Portending the disquiet of antebellum martyrs.
Wittiness trees attest in angles and chains
To the master's grid and shade the lanes
For the surrey whose wheels rutted the gateway
(Become artifacts) en route to soirées of gaiety.
The prairie land, violated by steel and condescension
To the roots of its towering grasses and purple gentian,
Forced to nourish seeds of an alien flora for hempen
Riches, patiently awaits its day of redemption.
Bricks of fertile earth fired over an Osage hearth,
By chattel hands, in mortise and tenons, gave birth
To a mansion at the prelude of a moral sea-change
That would divide the nation and break its chains.
Current Era
Their lives deprived of enslaved labor, the once-lived
Voices ebbed a little as each generation removed.
Shrouded in leaves of time they are a mute bequeath
Indelibly recorded upon the stories that lie beneath.
Dreamer boy speak for them now. Sing for bluestem that switched
Against the sky nourishing the thundering herds that provisioned
Native tribes. Rage for those hobbled to sow but never to reap,
Weep for a Nation gone mad and seeds planted too deep.
Reflections after touring an abandoned antebellum mansion.
Copyright Paul M Thomson September 2011.
She has left my bedroom lately. Lately?
It was long ago. She has taken my guitar with her.
But history has slipped out of memory.
I am not prepared for a reckoning.
Is it a time for uninterrupted grief.
This no bitter recompense for no fault done.
The Tigers beat the Angles 4 to 1.
***A song for Lulu