Woodmason was born in England and arrived in Charleston in 1752. He spent
most of the 1750s as a planter, and in 1757 fought with the militia during
the French and Indian War. Woodmason returned to England in 1765, was
ordained an Anglican Priest in 1766, and returned to South Carolina later
that year. In the late 1760s he was a missionary on the South Carolina
frontier. Woodmason returned to England in1774. His date of death is unknown.
Image: A 1711 map showing the extent of settlement in South Carolina.
Woodmason's ministry was based on the edge of the colony.
C. W. in Carolina to E. J. at Gosport
While you, my friend, indulg'd in each desire,
Your blooming bride with rapt'rous love admire;
From grave to gay with various authors change,
Or blithe from concert to assembly range,
Me harder fate to foreign lands conveys;
In foreign lands the muse my call obeys.
The land, tho' foreign, softest seasons bless,
To the pleas'd native bounteous in excess.
Ev'n I, who pine for less indulgent skies,
Am charm'd where'er I turn my wond'ring eyes.
Almost I seem to tread enchanted ground,
And endless beauty fills the circuit round.
Thy pleasing name I echo thro' the woods,
Then wish thee with me near these chrystal floods,
To view Santee tumultuous in its course,
And trace the great Port Royal to its source:
To see Savanna draw his watry store,
Thro' the long windings of a swampy shore,
And rapid Ashley with impetuous tide,
Thro' the long chain of num'rous islands glide.
With transport fir'd, attentive I survey,
The two Podees to Winyaw's bason stray,
Parents of floods! who rolling thro' the plain,
The Cherokees of half their moisture drain,
And swol'n with rains, or swift dissolving snow,
Distribute wealth and plenty where they flow.
Their names, enfranchiz'd by the tuneful throng,
Were never yet immortaliz'd in song:
They, lost in silence and oblivion, lye,
Till time ordains to flow in poetry.
Ah! were I blest with tuneful Gaselee's skill,
Thy streams, Black-River, shou'd my numbers fill,
Where Cleland, Powel and Trapier reside,
And learning's toil rude savages deride,
Sometimes to Pon-pon's banks I calm retire,
Or shallow Stono's fertile shores admire.
Stono, a languid stream, derives its course,
From various urns, and from a doubtful source,
When wilt thou, Wando, in poetic lays,
Acquire, like Helicon, immortal praise?
When shall some deathless muse exalt thy fame,
Fair Edistow, and dignify thy stream?
Broad Waccamaw, which now obscurely strays,
May gain distinction while it yields the bays,
And farther than her rice can find its way,
Ashpoo may be convey'd some future day.
Here could my humble muse, a train run o'er
Of gen'rous names, that honor Cooper's shore:
The Cordes's Harlstons, Beresfords, and Beard,
(By ties of virtuous friendship long endear'd)
With Broughton, Simmons, Austen, and Durand,
The pride and grace of Carolina's land!
Did not the tilting bark unwilling stay,
And southern breezes chide the short delay:
The pleasing talk, at present, I suspend,
And bid a Langhorn's pen their worth commend.
Oh! would a spark of empyreal fire,
With Parker's warmth my ravish'd breast inspire,
Unnumber'd beauties in my verse should shine,
And Carolina grace each flowing line.
See how her fragrant groves around me smile,
That shun the coast of Britain's stormy isle,
Or when transplanted and preserv'd with care,
Curse the cold clime, and starve in northern air.
Here, kindly warmth, their mounting juice ferments,
To taller growth and more exalted scents:
Ev'n loosen'd sands with tender myrtles bloom,
And trodden weeds exhale a rich perfume.
Bear me, some god, to worthy Michi's seat,
Or give me shade in Taylor's calm retreat,
Where western gales eternally reside,
And bounteous seasons lavish all their pride;
Blossoms, and fruits, and flow'rs, together rise,
And the whole year in gay confusion lyes.
What! tho' a second Carthage here we raise,
A late attempt, the work of modern days,
Here Drayton's seat and Middleton's is found,
Delightful villa's! be they long renown'd.
Swift fly the years when sciences retire,
From frigid climes to equinoctial fire:
When Raphael's tints, and Titian's strokes shall faint,
As fair America shall deign to paint.
Here from the mingled strength of shade and light,
A new creation shall arise to sight,
And sculpture here in full perfection shine,
Dug, for her hand, our Apalachian mine.
Methinks I see, in solemn order stand,
The first advent'rers to this blooming land:
Ashley and Archdale, Colleton, and Boon,
Bull, Johnson, Izzard, heroes worthy Rome,
See Indian chiefs whom cruelties renown,
Submit their country to the British crown,
Domes, temples, bridges, rise in distant views,
And sumtuous palaces the sight amuse.
How has kind heav'n adorn'd this happy land,
And scatter'd blessings with a lib'ral hand!
But what avail her unexhausted stores,
Her woody mountains, and her sunny shores,
With all the gifts that heav'n and earth impart,
The smiles of nature, and the charms of art?
While noxious reptiles in her vallies reign,
And stinging insects fill the watry plain,
While droughts and hurricanes at once impair,
The smiling prospects of the plenteous year.
The red'ning orange, and the bearded grain
Are scarce enjoy'd, or snatch'd with fear and pain:
The planter joyless views luxuriant vines,
And in the myrtle's fragrant shade repines;
Scorch'd in his boasted aromatick grove,
From heat no shelter, no recess for love.
O Britain! queen of isles, serenely bright,
Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight,
Eternal pleasures in thy borders reign,
And smiling plenty leads thy wanton train.
On foreign mountains may the sun refine
The grapes of soft juice, and mellow it to wine
With citron groves adorn a distant soil,
And the fat olive swell with floods of oil,
Thy sons ne'er envy warmer climes that lye
Stretch'd in bright tracts beneath a cloudless sky,
Nor yet at heav'n with impious frowns repine,
Tho' o'er their heads, the frozen Pleiades shine.
Struck with thy name, my country, which resounds
From many a voice, to ocean's utmost bounds;
Dear, conscious mem'ry wounds my breast with pain,
I long to tread paternal fields again:
To hear my lisping boy's delight exprest,
And snatch my Stella to my panting breast.
