Olustee

This poem was written by Ellen Murray, a co-founder of the Penn School on St. Helena Island in South Carolina. The poem was originally published in the National Anti-Slavery Standard on December 17, 1864.

Down in the Florida swamp,
Where the dark cypress is growing,
Down in the evergreen glade,
Where the red blood has been flowing,
Where all the stems of the trees
Marks of the bullets are keeping,
Where all the bushes, downtramped,
Show where the battle came sweeping.

Down in the Florida swamp,
Where our true heroes are lying,
Green spring the ferns from the soil
They have made holy by dying;
There the thrush calls to her mate,
'Stead of the musket's sharp ringing;
There, on the fire-scathed bough,
Redbird to redbird is singing.

Down in the Florida swamp
Men to their duty stood bravely,
Facing the thickets of death
Steadily, firmly, if gravely,
Sure that, though low they might lie,
And their graves should o'erbridge the morass,
Over that bridge to renown
Their race and their nation would pass.

Down in the Florida swamp,
Dying far rather than failing;
Speaketh the land of her sons,
Gladly and not with bewailing;
Saith: "Where such pathways are made,
Bridging my swamps and morasses,
Swear I by life and by death,
Over them Liberty passes."
Ellen Murray