V

Of the Wings of Atalanta

O black boy of Atlanta!
But half was spoken;
The slave's chains and the master's
Alike are broken;
The one curse of the races
Held both in tether;
They are rising--all are rising--
The black and white together.

WHITTIER.


South of the North, yet north of the South, lies the City of a
Hundred Hills, peering out from the shadows of the past into
the promise of the future. I have seen her in the morning, when
the first flush of day had half-roused her; she lay gray and
still on the crimson soil of Georgia; then the blue smoke
began to curl from her chimneys, the tinkle of bell and
scream of whistle broke the silence, the rattle and roar of
busy life slowly gathered and swelled, until the seething whirl
of the city seemed a strange thing in a sleepy land.

Once, they say, even Atlanta slept dull and drowsy at the
foot-hills of the Alleghanies, until the iron baptism of war
awakened her with its sullen waters, aroused and maddened
her, and left her listening to the sea. And the sea cried to the