John Dickson Bruns was born in Charleston in 1836. He graduated from
the College of of Charleston in 1854 and went on to get his M.D.from The
Medical College of South Carolina. He served as the editor of the Charleston
Medical Journal until 1861. Bruns contributed both prose and verse to
various magazines and newspapers. He is probably best known for his Civil
War poem “The Foe at the Gates,” written in 1865.
Image: A nineteenth-century view of The Medical College of South Carolina,
to which Bruns devoted much of his career. The debris is due to the 1886
earthquake.
The Foe at the Gates
Ring round her! children of her glorious skies,
Whom she hath nursed to stature proud and great;
Catch one last glance from her imploring eyes,
Then close your ranks and face the threatening fate.
Ring round her! with a hair of horrent steel
Confront the foe, nor mercy ask nor give;
And in her hour of anguish let her feel
That ye can die whom she has taught to live.
Ring round her! swear, by every lifted blade,
To shield from wrong the mother who gave you birth;
That never violent hand on her be laid,
Nor base foot desecrate her hallowed hearth.
Curst be the dastard who shall halt or doubt!
And doubly damned who casts one look behind!
Ye who are men! with unsheathed sword, and shout,
Up with her banner! give it to the wind!
Peal your wild slogan, echoing far and wide,
Till every ringing avenue repeat
The gathering cry, and Ashley's angry tide
Calls to the sea-waves beating round her feet.
Sons, to the rescue! spurred and belted, come!
Kneeling, with clasp'd hands, she invokes you now
By the sweet memories of your childhood's home
By every manly hope and flial vow,
To save her proud soul from that loathed thrall
Which yet her spirit cannot brook to name;
Or, if her fate be near, and she must fall,
Spare her--she sues--the agony and shame.
From all her fanes let solemn bells be tolled;
Heap with kind hands her costly funeral pyre,
And thus, with paean sung and anthem rolled,
Give her unspotted to the God of Fire.
Gather around her sacred ashes then,
Sprinkle the cherished dust with crimson rain,
Die! as becomes a race of free-born men,
Who will not crouch to wear the bondman's chain
So, dying, ye shall win a high renown,
If not in life, at least by death, set free;
And send her fame through endless ages down--
The last grand holocaust of Liberty.
