Sunset on Edisto Beach, SC

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 July 11, 1863.

The sunset colors glowed and dimmed
Across the gray clouds of the sky,
The stars shone softly through the haze,
As loving eyes on those who die.

There lay a small cloud in the east,
And through its foldings, dark and deep,
The quivering lightnings came and went,
Scarce knowing when to wake or sleep;

Then sprang, as swords spring from the sheath,
Keen-edged from out the shadow's brim,
And flashed across the startled blue
With glory, battle-like and grim.

The ocean broke upon the land
With all its wealth of wave and foam,
The dark wing of the cormorant
Was hasting to his distant home.

Such eves, with cloud and light and wave,
May oft have smiled upon this shore
When house, and garden, hall and beach,
With joy and mirth were running o'er.

When light steps trod the crowded beach,
And children played with foam and shell,
Where now, across the lonely sand,
Paces the wary sentinel.

The little dark cloud in their sky
Of sin and wrong, they would not see,
Till justice sent the gathered storm
To consummate its destiny—

To break like whirlwind; and like chaff
It swept them from their place away,
Leaving their desolated homes
To strangers' feet and strangers' sway.

This is not vengeance. 'Tis but law,
At once unchangeable and right,
That he who sows the seeds of storm
Must reap the whirlwind's stayless might;

That he who sins must suffer loss,
Who shuts his eyes must go astray,
And he who contradicts God's "Yes,"
Must meet the Judge's changeless "Nay."
E. Murray