The South,forever allied to Confederate America, Abram Joseph Ryan was born in 1838 in Maryland and went onto become an influential priest and one of the most recognizable poetic voices of the southern states of America in the 19th Century. His parents had emigrated from Ireland and he was their first sibling to have been actually born in their new adopted country.
The South by Abram Joseph Ryan
Yes, give me the land
Where the ruins are spread,
And the living tread light
On the heart of the dead;
Yes, give me the land
That is blest by the dust,
And bright with the deeds
Of the down-trodden just.Yes, give me the land
Where the battles’ red blast
Has flashed on the future
The form of the past;
Yes, give me the land
That hath legends and lays
That tell of the memories
Of long-vanished days.Yes, give me the land
That hath story and song
To tell of the strife
Of the right with the wrong;
Yes, give me the land
With a grave in each spot
And names in the graves
That shall not be forgot.Yes, give me the land
Of the wreck and the tomb;
There’s glory in gloom.
For out of the gloom
Future brightness is born;
As, after the night
Looms the sunrise of morn.And the graves of the dead,
With the grass overgrown,
May yet form the footstool
Of Liberty’s throne;
And each simple wreck
In the way-path of might
Shall yet be a rock
In the temple of Right.
