The Long Martyrdom of the South

April 9th, a day adorned with many martyrs –
Abbot Hedda of Peterborough,
Abbot Theodore of Crowland,
And dozens of other English monks
Cut asunder by the Viking Danes;
Bishop Desan of Persia with companions
In the hundreds, sentenced by Sapor;
Massylitan Martyrs of northwest Africa,
Honored by saints, Augustine and Bede;
New Martyrs of Lesbos, monks Raphael
And Nicholas, cruelly tortured
By the Turks, the first sawn through the jaw,
The second died at the gruesome sight,
The children Eleni and Irene,
Mistreated and murdered, too:
Eleni beaten fiercely,
Irene lost an arm
And suffocated in a cask
With a fire blazing underneath –
Several more died with them.
On April 9th hosts of martyrs
Finished their trials and received their crowns
From the Victor over Death, Christ our God.
On April 9th the Southern people
Began their martyrdom at Appomattox,
A contest not quick like those of others,
But slow and subtle, full of cunning,
As Yankee apostates, devils, demons,
And other swindlers attempt to draw
Dixie’s folk away from the Soul-mender,
The Flesh-healer, her Savior Jesus Christ.
The weight of years presses upon us,
Many have fallen into the traps of temptation,
The desire to give up grows stronger.
But only the athlete who competes
Can win a worthy crown.
The Southron who quits,
Who sits him down to rest,
Who forsakes Christ and his Southern kin,
Will receive a little pleasure now,
But never-ending shame and torment
After his body breathes its last.
Not so the faithful Southron,
Who will suffer and even die
For God and for his fathers,
Suffer so that Dixie may live on,
Make a sacrifice of themselves
As did Maury, Mosby,
Ashby, and Hill. He will receive
An imperishable crown from the Hand of God,
And an honored place in the Heavenly Southland,
Where all the redeemed of Dixie will gleam
With the Uncreated Light of Christ,
Like the Martyrs of April 9th,
Like the martyrs of other days and years and lands –
Sharing in their spirit,
They will likewise share in their reward –
Whom they will never tire of praising,
With the Father and the Holy Ghost,
Now and to the ages of ages. Amen.

-By Walt Garlington

Identity Dixie Guest

O I’m a good old rebel, now that’s just what I am. For this “fair land of freedom” I do not care at all. I’m glad I fit against it, I only wish we’d won, And I don’t want no pardon for anything I done.