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200 Years of Palmetto Poets

Samuel Henry Dickson (1798-1872)

Samuel Henry Dickson is best known for his role in founding the Medical College of South Carolina in 1833. Dickson was born on September 20, 1798 in Charleston. At age 13 Dickson was enrolled at Yale. He received his M.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1819, and then went on to take charge of the Marine and Yellow Fever Hospitals in Charleston. He served as a professor at the Medical College until 1847 and later taught at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia.

I Sigh For the Land of Cypress and Pine

I sigh for the land of cypress and pine,
Where the jessamine blooms, and the gay woodbine;
Where the moss droops low from the green oak tree,--
Oh, that sun-bright land is the land for me!

The snowy flower of the orange there
Sheds its sweet fragrance through the air;
And the Indian rose delights to twine
Its branches with the laughing vine.

There the deer leaps light through the open glade
Or hides him far in the forest shade,
When the woods resound in the dewy morn
With the clang of the merry hunter's horn.

There the hummingbird, of rainbow plume,
Hangs over the scarlet creeper's bloom;
While 'midst the leaves his varying dyes
Sparkle like half-seen fairy eyes.

There the echoes ring through the livelong day
With the mock-bird's changeful roundelay;
And at night, when the scene is calm and still,
With the moan of the plaintive whip-poor-will.

Oh! I sigh for the land of the cypress and pine,
Of the laurel, the rose, and the gay woodbine,
Where the long, gray moss decks the rugged oak tree,
That sun-bright land is the land for me.

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