Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.

Introductory to Southern States

Alabama

By Charles Timothy Brooks (1813–1883)

BRUISED and bleeding, pale and weary,

Onward to the South and West,

Through dark woods and deserts dreary,

By relentless foemen pressed,

Came a tribe where evening, darkling,

Flushed a mighty river’s breast;

And they cried, their faint eyes sparkling,

“Alabama! Here we rest!”

By the stern steam-demon hurried,

Far from home and scenes so blest;

By the gloomy care-dogs worried,

Sleepless, houseless, and distressed,

Days and nights beheld me hieing

Like a bird without a nest,

Till I hailed thy waters, crying,

“Alabama! Here I rest!”

Oh! when life’s last sun is blinking

In the pale and darksome West,

And my weary frame is sinking,

With its cares and woes oppressed,

May I, as I drop the burden

From my sick and fainting breast,

Cry, beside the swelling Jordan,

“Alabama! Here I rest!”