Rodgers (1845 - 1919) spent his early years in Charleston. He served in the 23rd South Carolina Regiment in Charleston, at the Battle of Gettysburg, and returned to South Carolina to participate in the defense of Charleston. He was awarded the Confederate Gold Medal by the Sons of the Confederate Veterans. His journalism career began with the Charleston News and Courier. In 1878 he moved his young family to Beaufort in order to found a newspaper called the Beaufort Crescent. Three years later he moved to Port Royal to found the Palmetto Post. (We have copies of the Palmetto Post on microfilm 1882 - 1906.) He moved back to Beaufort in 1904. Two years later the Palmetto Post was consolidated with the Beaufort Gazette as Rodgers was a part owner of the Beaufort Gazette Publishing Company. Rodgers remained a Beaufort resident until his death on 12 December 1919. His body is interred in the St. Helena's Episcopal Churchyard. "At Easter Dawn" was composed on 20 April 1905.
At Easter Dawn
Sweetly the birds are singing
At Easter dawn;
Sweetly the bells are ringing;
On Easter morn.
And the words that they say,
On this Easter day,
Are, "Christ the Lord is risen."
Birds! forget not your singing
At Easter dawn;
Bells! be ye ever ringing
On Easter morn.
In the spring of the year,
When Easter is here,
Sing, "Christ the Lord has risen."
Buds! ye will soon be flowers
Cheery and white;
Snowstorms are changing to showers,
Darkness to light.
With the awakening of spring,
Oh, sweetly sing,
"Lo! Christ the Lord has risen."
Easter buds were growing
Ages ago!
Easter lilies were blowing
By the water's flow.
All nature was glad,
Not a creature was sad,
For Christ the Lord had risen.
(We have copies of Beaufort Gazette newspaper backfiles from 1903 - March 2015 on microfilm in our Research Room.)
You can read more of Rodgers's poems in The Palmetto Poet: Samuel Henry Rodgers by Walter Ioor Rodgers, Sr. (Self-published, 1985). There's one circulating copy in Local History as well.
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