Unknown
A voice is heard in Ramah!
High sounds are on the gale!
Notes to wake buried patriots!
Notes to strike traitors pale!
Wild notes of outraged feeling
Cry aloud and spare him not!
‘Tis Virginia’s strong appealing,
And she calls to Winfield Scott!
Oh! chief among ten thousand!
Thou whom I loved so well,
Star that has set, as never yet
Since son of morning fell!
I call not in reviling,
Nor to speak thee what thou art;
I leave thee to thy death-bed,
And I leave thee to thy heart!
But by every mortal hope,
And by every mortal fear;
By all that man deems sacred,
And that woman holds most dear;
Yea! by thy mother’s honor,
And by thy father’s grave,
By hell beneath, and heaven above,
Give back the sword I gave!
Not since God’s sword was planted
To guard life’s heavenly tree,
Has ever blade been granted,
Like that bestowed on thee!
To pierce me with the steel I gave
To guard mine honor’s shrine,
Not since Iscariot lived and died,
Was treason like to thine!
Give back the sword! and sever
Our strong and mighty tie!
We part, and part forever,
To conquer or to die!
In sorrow, not in anger,
I speak the word, “We part!”
For I leave thee to thy death-bed,
And I leave thee to thy heart!
Richmond Whig.
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https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8648/pg8648.txt
Analysis (AI Assisted)
This poem works as a loud, emotional appeal from a Southern perspective early in the Civil War. It uses a biblical reference in the opening line to frame the sense of betrayal and national fracture. The poem is built around a direct accusation aimed at Winfield Scott, a figure once respected by the South, now condemned for staying with the Union. The speaker’s disappointment is treated as a kind of personal and moral injury, not just a political one. That shift from admiration to denunciation is the driving energy of the piece.
Much of the poem relies on dramatic contrasts: loyalty and treason, honor and disgrace, the past admiration for Scott and the present anger toward him. The poem uses repetition to argue that Scott’s betrayal is not just political disloyalty but something deeper, almost familial. The repeated claims of “I leave thee to thy death-bed” and “I leave thee to thy heart” are an attempt to strip away any sense of justification Scott might have had and to paint him as a man who abandoned an inherited duty.
There is a heavy use of religious and mythic imagery. The poem compares Scott’s supposed betrayal to the fall of Lucifer and the treachery of Judas. These are extreme choices, and the poem leans on them without subtlety. The goal is not nuance but pressure. The rhetoric is meant to stir anger, reinforce Southern unity, and portray the Union cause as a betrayal of heritage. The reference to the sword as a sacred object, tied to family honor and even divine purpose, is one of the poem’s central devices. By framing the sword as a gift meant to protect Southern identity, the poem turns Scott’s allegiance to the Union into an unforgivable reversal.
There is also a clear sense of performance here. The poem pretends to be sorrowful rather than furious, but the anger is on the surface. It tries to take the moral high ground by claiming not to “revile,” yet every stanza is essentially an accusation. That contradiction is part of the poem’s character; its purpose is not fairness but emotional pressure and public shaming.
As a war poem, it shows how quickly the Civil War pushed familiar figures into enemy roles, and how personal those shifts felt to people who believed they were defending a way of life. It offers a snapshot of the Southern mindset at a moment when loyalty was being tested, and it does so through a blend of religious language, personal appeal, and outright condemnation. The poem is more about the speaker’s sense of betrayal than about the war itself, but it reflects the intensity of the political and emotional break that defined the early months of 1861.