Going Home to Edisto

This poem was written by Ellen Murray, a co-founder of the Penn School on St. Helena Island in South Carolina. The poem was originally published in the National Anti-Slavery Standard on March 18, 1865.

They met before the day,

The stars were looking dim,

The damp night air grew eloquent

With Christian prayer and hymn.

They knelt to pray again,

The last time on this land,

This shelter they had sought, to ‘scape

Th' oppressor’s lifted hand.

Now as the flag moved on,

Their olden lands were won

For freemen’s step and freemen’s home,

The fresh, new life begun.

They said, amid their prayers,

Sweet words of faith and trust

To Him before whose changeless word

Armies and hosts were dust.

They said, in ancient phrase,

“If thou, Lord, dost not go,

Carry us not from hence; thy love

We cannot, Lord, forego.”

They mingled in their prayers

Full blessings on the North,

The arm that fought for them and theirs,

The hand that led them forth.

The Northern soldier slept

That hour a calmer sleep,

The widow in the Northern home

Ceased for a while to weep.

They sang of Jordan’s stream,

They sang their Joshua’s name,

And vowed as long as earth endured

His praises to proclaim.

Till fell the sunlight red

Through broken chink and pane,

On forms that swayed, as to the winds

Sways Summer’s first-fruit grain.

And with that burst of praise,

And in the sunrise glow,

They left their exile for a home

On long-loved Edisto.

It seemed to us who heard

As if the age rolled back,

And Israel’s children knelt beside

The dreary, desert track,

With Canaan full in view,

The pillared cloud before,

And sunny plains and harvest fields

Mantling the Jordan shore.

And now we say: “Our God,

No change can come to Thee,

In every age a faithful Guide,

Giver of Liberty.

“How can we fail to trust

Thy kindness in this day,

Or take sad counsel of our hearts

When great events delay?”

E. Murray

Part of a series of articles titled
Poems by Ellen Murray.

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