Confiteri: Offsite Post: ‘The Long Martyrdom of the South’

April 9^th, 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 9^th hosts of martyrs

Finished their trials and received their crowns

From the Victor over Death, Christ our God.

On April 9^th 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,

. . .

Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Confiteri