William Gilmore Simms
I.
Shell the old city I shell!
Ye myrmidons of Hell;
Ye serve your master well,
With hellish arts!
Hurl down, with bolt and fire,
The grand old shrines, the spire;
But know, your demon ire
Subdues no hearts!
II.
There, we defy ye still,
With sworn and resolute will;
Courage ye cannot kill
While we have breath!
Stone walls your bolts may break,
But, ere our souls ye shake,
Of the whole land we’ll make
One realm of death!
III.
Dear are our homes! our eyes
Weep at their sacrifice;
And, with each bolt that flies,
Each roof that falls,
The pang extorts the tear,
That things so precious, dear
To memory, love, and care,
Sink with our walls.
IV.
Trophies of ancient time,
When, with great souls, sublime,
Opposing force and crime,
Our fathers fought;
Relics of golden hours,
When, for our shrines and bowers,
Genius, with magic powers,
Her triumphs wrought!
V.
Each Sabbath-hallowed dome,
Each ancient family home,
The dear old southwest room,
All trellised round;
Where gay, bright summer vines,
Linked in fantastic twines
With the sun’s blazing lines,
Rubied the ground!
VI.
Homes, sacred to the past,
Which bore the hostile blast,
Though Spain, France, Britain cast
Their shot and shell!
Tombs of the mighty dead,
That in our battles bled,
When on our infant head
These furies fell!
VII.
Halls which the foreign guest
Found of each charm possessed,
With cheer unstinted blessed,
And noblest grace;
Where, drawing to her side
The stranger, far and wide,
Frank courtesy took pride
To give him place!
VIII.
The shaded walks–the bowers
Where, through long summer hours,
Young Love first proved his powers
To win the prize;
Where every tree has heard
Some vows of love preferred,
And, with his leaves unstirred,
Watch’d lips and eyes.
IX.
Gardens of tropic blooms,
That, through the shaded rooms,
Sent Orient-winged perfumes
With dusk and dawn;
The grand old laurel, tall,
As sovereign over all,
And, from the porch and hall,
The verdant lawn.
X.
Oh! when we think of these
Old homes, ancestral trees;
Where, in the sun and breeze,
At morn and even,
Was to enjoy the play
Of hearts at holiday,
And find, in blooms of May,
Foretaste of Heaven!
XI.
Where, as we cast our eyes
On thing’s of precious prize,
Trophies of good and wise,
Grand, noble, brave;
And think of these, so late
Sacred to soul and state,
Doomed, as the wreck of fate,
By fiend and slave!–
XII.
The inevitable pain,
Coursing through blood and brain,
Drives forth, like winter rain,
The bitter tear!
We cannot help but weep,
From depth of hearts that keep
The memories, dread and deep.
To vengeance dear!
XIII.
Aye, for each tear we shed,
There shall be torrents red,
Not from the eye-founts fed,
But from the veins!
Bloody shall be the sweat,
Fiends, felons, that shall yet
Pay retribution’s debt,
In torture’s pains!
XIV.
Our tears shall naught abate,
Of what we owe to hate–
To the avenging fate–
To earth and Heaven!
And, soon or late, the hour
Shall bring th’ atoning power,
When, through the clouds that lower,
The storm-bolt’s driven!
XV.
Shell the old city–shell!
But, with each rooftree’s knell,
Vows deep of vengeance fell,
Fire soul and eye!
With every tear that falls
Above our stricken walls
Each heart more fiercely calls,
“Avenge, or die!”
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Analysis (AI Assisted)
This poem is built almost entirely out of outrage and grief, and it doesn’t try to hide that. It speaks from inside the experience of bombardment, not from any distance. The poet starts by addressing the Union attackers directly, calling them agents of destruction and placing them on the level of demons. That tells you the emotional temperature right away. The poem isn’t trying to persuade anyone or weigh any ideas. It is focused on expressing pressure, reaction, and a sense of violation.
Much of the poem works by listing what Charleston means to the speaker. The lines return again and again to homes, streets, rooms, gardens, and familiar spaces. The poet treats the city like a container for several generations of memories. When the shells fall, they are presented as attacks not just on buildings but on the lives that were formed inside them. The poem wants the reader to understand that the destruction is not abstract. Even details like the “southwest room” or “trellised vines” are there to make the loss feel personal instead of symbolic.
There’s also a strong interest in heritage. The poem constantly points backward to earlier wars, earlier foreign enemies, earlier tests of the city’s strength. It insists that Charleston has endured danger many times, which builds the logic that the current attack is part of a long story of resistance. The references to Spain, France, and Britain serve that purpose. The poem is reminding its audience that the city’s identity was shaped under fire, and that its survival carries meaning beyond the current war.
At the same time, the poet elevates the domestic world as something worth defending. Places associated with hospitality, courtship, and ordinary family life are described in almost sentimental detail. These scenes are not used to soften the tone, but to sharpen the sense of loss. The more comfortable these images are, the harsher the bombardment seems by contrast. The poem builds its emotional argument by stacking these memories against the violence outside.
Eventually the poem shifts from grief to anger. After long catalogues of what is being destroyed, the tone hardens. Tears lead directly to a promise of revenge. The poet doesn’t hide this. The lines openly call for blood and punishment, and they insist that vengeance is a duty. This is an important part of the poem’s purpose. It tries to turn helplessness into resolve. The mourning becomes fuel. The poem uses repetition—tears, vows, blood—to reinforce that transformation.
The poem doesn’t make distinctions between military targets and civilian spaces. Everything is woven into one large sense of injury. That blurring creates the emotional logic that any destruction carried out by the enemy justifies a violent answer. In that sense, the poem works more like a cry from a besieged population than a structured political argument. It is straightforward, reactive, and focused entirely on the community under fire.
The final stanza drives home the idea that every collapsed roof and every tear strengthens the will to fight. The poet wants the reader to believe that bombardment cannot break the city’s spirit; it can only intensify the desire to resist. There is no interest in compromise or reflection. The poem lives in a moment where grief and anger feel inseparable, and it captures that moment without trying to soften it.
As a piece of wartime writing, the poem shows how civilians in Confederate cities expressed their experience of bombardment. It relies on memory, domestic detail, heritage, and emotional pressure, rather than strategy or policy. It is not concerned with who is right in a broader sense. It is centered on the feeling of watching a familiar world collapse and refusing to accept that collapse quietly.