The Crisis
ACROSS the Stony Mountains, o'er the desert's drouth and sand,
The circles of our empire touch the western ocean's strand;
From slumberous Timpanogos, to Gila, wild and free,
Flowing down from Nuevo-Leon to California's sea;
And from the mountains of the east, to Santa Rosa's shore,
The eagles of Mexitli shall beat the air no more.
O Vale of Rio Bravo! Let thy simple children weep;
Close watch about their holy fire let maids of Pecos keep;
Let Taos send her cry across Sierra Madre's pines,
And Santa Barbara toll her bells amidst her corn and vines;
For lo! the pale land-seekers come, with eager eyes of gain,
Wide scattering, like the bison herds on broad Salada's plain.
Let Sacramento's herdsmen heed what sound the winds bring down
Of footsteps on the crisping snow, from cold Nevada's crown!
Full hot and fast the Saxon rides, with rein of travel slack,
And, bending o'er his saddle, leaves the sunrise at his back;
By many a lonely river, and gorge of fir and pine,
On many a wintry hill-top, his nightly camp-fires shine.
O countrymen and brothers! that land of lake and plain,
Of salt wastes alternating with valleys fat with grain;
Of mountains white with winter, looking downward, cold, serene,
On their feet with spring-vines tangled and lapped in softest green;
Swift through whose black volcanic gates, o'er many a sunny vale,
Wind-like the Arapahoe sweeps the bison's dusty trail!
Great spaces yet untravelled, great lakes whose mystic shores
The Saxon rifle never heard, nor dip of Saxon oars;
Great herds that wander all unwatched, wild steeds that none have tamed,
Strange fish in unknown streams, and birds the Saxon never named;
Deep mines, dark mountain crucibles, where Nature's chemic powers
Work out the Great Designer's will; all these ye say are ours!
Forever ours! for good or ill, on us the burden lies;
God's balance, watched by angels, is hung across the skies.
Shall Justice, Truth, and Freedom turn the poised and trembling scale?
Or shall the Evil triumph, and robber Wrong prevail?
Shall the broad land o'er which our flag in starry splendor waves,
Forego through us its freedom, and bear the tread of slaves?
The day is breaking in the East of which the prophets told,
And brightens up the sky of Time the Christian Age of Gold;
Old Might to Right is yielding, battle blade to clerkly pen,
Earth's monarchs are her peoples, and her serfs stand up as men;
The isles rejoice together, in a day are nations born,
And the slave walks free in Tunis, and by Stamboul's Golden Horn!
Is this, O countrymen of mine! a day for us to sow
The soil of new-gained empire with slavery's seeds of woe?
To feed with our fresh life-blood the Old World's cast-off crime,
Dropped, like some monstrous early birth, from the tired lap of Time?
To run anew the evil race the old lost nations ran,
And die like them of unbelief of God, and wrong of man?
Great Heaven! Is this our mission? End in this the prayers and tears,
The toil, the strife, the watchings of our younger, better years?
Still as the Old World rolls in light, shall ours in shadow turn,
A beamless Chaos, cursed of God, through outer darkness borne?
Where the far nations looked for light, a blackness in the air?
Where for words of hope they listened, the long wail of despair?
The Crisis presses on us; face to face with us it stands,
With solemn lips of question, like the Sphinx in Egypt's sands!
This day we fashion Destiny, our web of Fate we spin;
This day for all hereafter choose we holiness or sin,
Even now from starry Gerizim, or Ebal's cloudy crown
We call the dews of blessing or the bolts of cursing down!
By all for which the martyrs bore their agony and shame;
By all the warning words of truth with which the prophets came;
By the Future which awaits us; by all the hopes which cast
Their faint and trembling beams across the blackness of the Past;
And by the blessed thought of Him who for Earth's freedom died,
O my people! O my brothers! let us choose the righteous side.
So shall the Northern pioneer go joyful on his way;
To wed Penobscot's waters to San Francisco's bay;
To make the rugged places smooth, and sow the vales with grain;
And bear, with Liberty and Law, the Bible in his train:
The mighty West shall bless the East, and sea shall answer sea,
And mountain unto mountain call, Praise God for we are free!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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To Massachusetts
WHAT though around thee blazes
No fiery rallying sign?
From all thy own high places,
Give heaven the light of thine!
What though unthrilled, unmoving,
The statesman stand apart,
And comes no warm approving
From Mammon's crowded mart?
Still, let the land be shaken
By a summons of thine own!
By all save truth forsaken,
Stand fast with that alone!
Shrink not from strife unequal!
With the best is always hope;
And ever in the sequel
God holds the right side up!
But when, with thine uniting,
Come voices long and loud,
And far-off hills are writing
Thy fire-words on the cloud;
When from Penobscot's fountains
A deep response is heard,
And across the Western mountains
Rolls back thy rallying word;
Shall thy line of battle falter,
With its allies just in view?
Oh, by hearth and holy altar,
My fatherland, be true!
Fling abroad thy scrolls of freedom!
Speed them onward far and fast!
Over hill and valley speed them,
Like the sibyl's on the blast!
Lo! The Empire State is shaking
The shackles from her hand;
With the rugged North is waking
The level sunset land!
On they come, the free battalions!
East and West and North they come,
And the heart-beat of the millions
Is the beat of Freedom's drum.
'To the tyrant's plot no favor!
No heed to place-fed knaves!
Bar and bolt the door forever
Against the land of slaves!'
Hear it, mother Earth, and hear it,
The heavens above us spread!
The land is roused, — its spirit
Was sleeping, but not dead!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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England
ENGLAND, England, England,
Girdled by ocean and skies,
And the power of a world, and the heart of a race,
And a hope that never dies.
England, England, England,
Wherever a true heart beats,
Wherever the rivers of commerce flow,
Wherever the bugles of conquest blow,
Wherever the glories of liberty grow,
'Tis the name that the world repeats.
And ye, who dwell in the shadow
Of the century-sculptured piles,
Where sleep our century-honoured dead,
Whilst the great world thunders overhead,
And far out, miles on miles,
Beyond the smoke of the mighty town,
The blue Thames dimples and smiles;
Not yours alone the glory of old,
Of the splendid thousand years,
Of Britain's might and Britain's right
And the brunt of British spears.
Not yours alone, for the great world round,
Ready to dare and do,
Scot and Celt and Norman and Dane,
With the Northman's sinew and heart and brain,
And the Northman's courage for blessing or bane,
Are England's heroes too.
North and south and east and west,
Wherever their triumphs be,
Their glory goes home to the ocean-girt isle,
Where the heather blooms and the roses smile,
With the green isle under her lee.
And if ever the smoke of an alien gun
Should threaten her iron repose,
Shoulder to shoulder against the world,
Face to face with her foes,
Scot, and Celt and Saxon are one
Where the glory of England goes.
And we of the newer and vaster West,
Where the great war-banners are furled,
And commerce hurries her teeming hosts,
And the cannon are silent along our coasts,
Saxon and Gaul, Canadians claim
A part in the glory and pride and aim
Of the Empire that girdles the world.
England, England, England,
Wherever the daring heart
By Arctic floe or torrid strand
Thy heroes play their part;
For as long as conquest holds the earth,
Or commerce sweeps the sea,
By orient jungle or western plain
Will the Saxon spirit be:
And whatever the people that dwell beneath,
Or whatever the alien tongue,
Over the freedom and peace of the world
Is the flag of England flung,
Till the last great freedom is found,
And the last great truth be taught,
Till the last great deed be done,
And the last great battle is fought;
Till the last great fighter is slain in the last great fight,
And the war-wolf is dead in his den–
England, breeder of hope and valour and might,
Iron mother of men.
Yea, England, England, England,
Till honour and valour are dead,
Till the world's great cannons rust,
Till the world's great hopes are dust,
Till faith and freedom be fled,
Till wisdom and justice have passed
To sleep with those who sleep in the many-chambered vast,
Till glory and knowledge are charnelled dust in dust,
To all that is best in the world's unrest,
In heart and mind you are wed.
While out from the Indian jungle
To the far Canadian snows,
Over the East and over the West,
Over the worst and over the best,
The flag of the world to its winds unfurled,
The blood-red ensign blows.
poem by William Wilfred Campbell
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Ireland - 1882
'ISLAND of Destiny! Innisfail!' they cried, when their weary eyes
First looked on thy beauteous bosom from the amorous, ocean rise.
'Island of Destiny! Innisfail!' we cry. dear land, to thee,
As the sun of thy future rises and reddens the western sea!
Pregnant as earth with its gold and gems and its metals strong and fine,
Is thy soul with its ardors and fancies and sympathies divine.
Mustard seed of the nations! they scattered thy leaves to the air,
But the ravisher pales at the harvest that flourishes everywhere.
Queen in the right of thy courage! manacled, scourged, defamed,
Thy voice in the teeth of the bayonets the right of a race proclaimed.
'Bah!' they sneered from their battlements, 'her people cannot unite;
They are sands of the sea, that break before the rush of our ordered might!'
And wherever the flag of the pirate flew, the English slur was heard,
And the shallow of soul re-echoed the boast of the taunting word.
But we—O sun, that of old was our god, we look in thy face to-day,
As our Druids who prayed in the ancient time, and with them we proudly say:
'We have wronged no race, we have robbed no land, we have never oppressed the weak!'
And this in the face of Heaven is the nobler thing to speak.
We can never unite—thank God for that! in such unity as yours,
That strangles the rights of others, and only itself endures
As the guard of a bloodstained spoil and the red-eyed watch of the slave;
No need for such robber-union to a race free-souled and brave.
The races that band for plunder are the mud of the human stream,
The base and the coward and sordid, without an unselfish gleam.
It is mud that unites; but the sand is free—ay, every grain is free,
And the freedom of individual men is the highest of liberty.
It is mud that coheres; but the sand is free, till the lightning smite the shore,
And smelt the grains to a crystal mass, to return to sand no more.
And so with the grains of our Irish sand, that flash cleareyed to the sun,
Till a noble Purpose smites them and melts them into one.
While the sands are free, O Tyrants! like the wind are your steel and speech;
Your brute-force crushes a legion, but a soul it can never reach.
Island of Destiny! Innisfail? for thy faith is the payment near:
The mine of the future is opened, and the golden veins appear.
Thy hands are white and thy page unstained. Reach out for the glorious years,
And take them from Grod as His recompense for thy fortitude and tears.
Thou canst stand by the way ascending, as thy tyrant goes to the base:
The seeds of her death are in her and the signs in her cruel face.
On her darkened path lie the corpses of men, with whose blood her feet are red;
And the curses of ruined nations are a cloud above her head.
O Erin, fresh in the latest day, like a gem from a Syrian tomb,
The burial clay of the centuries has saved thy light in the gloom.
Thy hands may stretch to a kindred world: there is none that hates but one;
And she but hates as a pretext for the rapine she has done.
The night of thy grief is closing, and the sky in the East is red:
Thy children watch from the mountain-tops for the sun to kiss thy head.
O Mother of men that are fit to be free, for their test for freedom borne,
Thy vacant place in the Nations' race awaits but the coming morn!
poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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Wahonomin
GREAT mother! from the depths of forest wilds,
From mountain pass and burning sunset plain,
We, thine unlettered children of the woods,
Upraise to thee the everlasting hymn
Of nature, language of the skies and seas,
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Voice of the birds and sighing of the pine
In wintry wastes. We know none other tongue,
Nor the smooth speech that, like the shining leaves,
Hides the rough stems beneath. We bring our song,
Wood-fragrant, rough, yet autumn-streaked with love,
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And lay it as a tribute at thy feet.
But should it vex thee thus to hear us sing,
Sad in the universal joy that crowns
This year of years, and shouldst thou deem our voice
But death-cry of the ages that are past,
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Bear with us—say, "My children of the woods,
In language learnt from bird and wood and stream,
From changing moons and stars and misty lakes,
Pour forth their love, and lay it at my feet;
The voice is wild and strange, untuned to ear
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Of majesty, ill-timed to fevered pulse
Of this young age, and meteor-souls that flash
New paths upon night's dome; yet will I hear
This singing of my children ere they die."
Great mother! thou art wise, they say, and good,
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And reignest like the moon in autumn skies,
The world about thy feet. We have not seen
Thy face, nor the wild seas of life that surge
Around thy throne; but we have stood by falls,
Deep-shadowed in the silence of the woods,
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And heard the water-thunders, and have said,
Thus is the voice of men about our Queen.
What is the red man but the forest stream,
The cry of screech-owl in the desert wilds?
This flood that overflows the hills and plains
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Is not for us. Back, Westward, Northward, ay,
Up to eternal winter 'neath the stars,
Our path must be in silence, till the snows
And sun and wind have bleached our children's bones.
The red must go; the axe and plough and plane
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Are not for him. We perish with the pine,
We vanish in the silence of the woods;
Our footsteps, like the war-trail in the snow,
Grow fainter while the new spring buds with life.
Great mother! the white faces came with words
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Of love and hope, and pointed to the skies,
And in the sunrise splendour set the throne
Of the Great Spirit, and upon the cross
Showed us His Son, and asked a throne for Him.
Their speech was music; but in camp at night
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We brooded o'er the matter round the fire,
The shadowy pines about us, and the stars,
Set in the silent heavens, looking down.
We brooded o'er the matter days and years,
For thus each thought and thus each spake in words:
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"We children of the woods have lived and died
In these our forests, since the first moon tipped
Their thousand lakes and rivers with her beams,
Pale silver in the fading sky of even.
Our fathers' faces kindled in the glow
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Of setting suns; they read the starlit sky;
They heard the Spirit's breathing on the storm,
And on the quaking earth they felt His tread;
But never yet the story of His Son
Was wafted to them from the sighing woods,
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Or bird or stream. Our fathers' God is ours;
And as for these new words, we watch and wait."
Great mother! we have waited days and years,
Thro' spring and summer—summer, autumn, spring;
Brooding in silence, for anon we dreamed
70
A bird's voice in our hearts half sung, "'Tis true."
We listened and we watched the pale face come,
When, lo! new gods came with them—gods of iron
And fire, that shook the forests as they rushed,
Filling with thunder and loud screeching, plains,
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Mountains, and woods, and dimming with their breath
The shining skies. These new gods, who were they,
That came devouring all, and blackening earth
And sky with smoke and thunder? We knew not,
But fled in terror further from the face
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Of these white children and their gods of iron;
We heard no more their story of the Son,
And words of love. Their own lives were not love,
But war concealed and fire beneath the ash.
Thus ever now the burden of our speech—
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We perish with the pine tree and the bird,
We vanish in the silence of the woods,
The white man's hunting-ground, it is not ours;
We care not for his gods of iron and fire;
Our home is in the trackless wilds, the depths
90
Of mountain solitudes, by starlit lakes,
By noise of waters in the unchanging woods.
Great mother! we have wondered that thy sons,
Thy pale sons, should have left thy side and come
To these wild plains, and sought the haunts of bears
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And red men. Why their battle with the woods?
Whither they go upon their gods of iron,
Out of the golden sunrise to the mists
Of purple evening in the setting west?
Their lives have scarce as many moons as ours,
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Nor happier are. We know not what they seek;
For death's cold finger chills their fevered life,
As in the wilds he stills the meanest worm,
And death flies with them over all their paths,
And waits them in the heart of wildest waste;
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They cannot break his power. Forgive these thoughts
If, as they rise like mists, they dim the gold
That zones thy brow. They came to us at night,
As we have sat in council round the fire;
They seemed the echo of the sighing pines
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Far in our soul. One evening rose a chief,
White-headed, bowed with years, one hand on staff,
One on death's arm, preparing for the way.
"My sons," he said, "these people are not wise.
We bide our time, and they will pass away;
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Then shall the red man come like bird in spring,
And build the broken camp, and hunt and fish
In his old woods. These people pass away;
Then shall the red man come like bird in spring,
And build the broken camp, and hunt and fish
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In his old woods. These people pass away;
For I have thought through many nights and days,
And wondered what they seek; and now I know,
And knowing, say these people are not wise.
They found these plains beneath the burning west,
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And westward, ever westward, still they press,
Seeking the shining meadows of the land
Where the sun sleeps, and, folded 'neath his wings,
The happy spirits breathe eternal day.
But I have lived thro' five score changing years,
130
And I have talked with wintry-headed chiefs,
And I have heard that kingdom is not reached
Thro' woods and plains, but by the bridge of death.
This people is not wise; we bide our time."
Great mother! they have told us that the snows
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Of fifty winters sleep about thy throne,
And buds of spring now blossom with sweet breath
Beneath thy tread. They tell us of the sea,
And other lands, where other children dwell;
Of mighty cities and the gleam of gold,
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Of empires wider than the shining plains
Viewed from giant hill, that lift thy throne above
The clouded mountain-tops. They tell us, too,
Of wonders in the home of man; of gods
Of iron and fire made servants, and of fire
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Snatched from the clouds to flash man's swiftest thought;
But these are not for us. The forest flower
Droops in the haunts of man; it needs the sky,
And smokeless air, and glances of the sun
Thro' rustling leaves. We perish with the woods;
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The plains are all before thee. Send thy sons
To plant and build, and drive their flashing gods,
Startling the forests, till, like ocean's bounds,
Thine empire rolls in splendour from wide east
To widest west, broad fields of gold for thee
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And thy white children; but our spirits wait
Amid the silent ages, and we pass
To where our fathers dwell, by silent streams,
And hunt in trackless wilds through cloudless days.
The wheels of thy great empire, as it moves
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From east to west, from south to icy north,
Crush us to earth. We perish with the woods.
Great mother; if the changing moons have brought
Thee nearer to the darksome bridge that spans
The gulf between this and the eternal day,
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If thy path and thy children's be the same,
And thy feet follow where thy fathers went,
Perchance thy soul upon earth's utmost verge,
The eternal sky about thee, and the deeps
Unfathomable beyond—perchance thy soul,
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Grown weary with the fever of thy life,
May yearn for song of bird, and sighing pine,
And silent meditation of the woods;
Perchance, when, looking back from infinite skies
To restless man, thy soul, too, echoes, "Why?"
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"Where?" and "Whither?" and thy heart may love
This death-song of thy children, ere they pass
With birds and forests to the silent land.
Perchance the white face told us what was true,
And love and hope wait by the throne of God.
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The ruffled lake gives out but broken gleams
Of the clear stars above; so, restless life
May be the troubled reflex of the skies.
The world rolls onward, ever on and on,
Through clouded vast and moans of dying years,
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Into the depths of sunset; but the light
Blinds our dim eyes, we cannot see the goal.
The spirit of the world is not for us;
We perish with the pine tree and the bird;
We bow our heads in silence. We must die.
poem by Frederick George Scott
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Let America be America Again
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!
poem by Langston Hughes
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The Fugitive. (Tartar Song, From The Prose Version Of Chodzko)
I.
'He is gone to the desert land
I can see the shining mane
Of his horse on the distant plain,
As he rides with his Kossak band!
'Come back, rebellious one!
Let thy proud heart relent;
Come back to my tall, white tent,
Come back, my only son!
'Thy hand in freedom shall
Cast thy hawks, when morning breaks,
On the swans of the Seven Lakes,
On the lakes of Karajal.
'I will give thee leave to stray
And pasture thy hunting steeds
In the long grass and the reeds
Of the meadows of Karaday.
'I will give thee my coat of mail,
Of softest leather made,
With choicest steel inlaid;
Will not all this prevail?'
II.
'This hand no longer shall
Cast my hawks, when morning breaks,
On the swans of the Seven Lakes,
On the lakes of Karajal.
'I will no longer stray
And pasture my hunting steeds
In the long grass and the reeds
Of the meadows of Karaday.
'Though thou give me thy coat of mall,
Of softest leather made,
With choicest steel inlaid,
All this cannot prevail.
'What right hast thou, O Khan,
To me, who am mine own,
Who am slave to God alone,
And not to any man?
'God will appoint the day
When I again shall be
By the blue, shallow sea,
Where the steel-bright sturgeons play.
'God, who doth care for me,
In the barren wilderness,
On unknown hills, no less
Will my companion be.
'When I wander lonely and lost
In the wind; when I watch at night
Like a hungry wolf, and am white
And covered with hoar-frost;
'Yea, wheresoever I be,
In the yellow desert sands,
In mountains or unknown lands,
Allah will care for me!'
III.
Then Sobra, the old, old man,--
Three hundred and sixty years
Had he lived in this land of tears,
Bowed down and said, 'O Khan!
'If you bid me, I will speak.
There's no sap in dry grass,
No marrow in dry bones! Alas,
The mind of old men is weak!
'I am old, I am very old:
I have seen the primeval man,
I have seen the great Gengis Khan,
Arrayed in his robes of gold.
'What I say to you is the truth;
And I say to you, O Khan,
Pursue not the star-white man,
Pursue not the beautiful youth.
'Him the Almighty made,
And brought him forth of the light,
At the verge and end of the night,
When men on the mountain prayed.
'He was born at the break of day,
When abroad the angels walk;
He hath listened to their talk,
And he knoweth what they say.
'Gifted with Allah's grace,
Like the moon of Ramazan
When it shines in the skies, O Khan,
Is the light of his beautiful face.
'When first on earth he trod,
The first words that he said
Were these, as he stood and prayed,
There is no God but God!
'And he shall be king of men,
For Allah hath heard his prayer,
And the Archangel in the air,
Gabriel, hath said, Amen!'
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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The Pass Of The Sierra
ALL night above their rocky bed
They saw the stars march slow;
The wild Sierra overhead,
The desert's death below.
The Indian from his lodge of bark,
The gray bear from his den,
Beyond their camp-fire's wall of dark,
Glared on the mountain men.
Still upward turned, with anxious strain,
Their leader's sleepless eye,
Where splinters of the mountain chain
Stood black against the sky.
The night waned slow: at last, a glow,
A gleam of sudden fire,
Shot up behind the walls of snow,
And tipped each icy spire.
'Up, men!' he cried, 'yon rocky cone,
To-day, please God, we'll pass,
And look from Winter's frozen throne
On Summer's flowers and grass!'
They set their faces to the blast,
They trod the eternal snow,
And faint, worn, bleeding, hailed at last
The promised land below.
Behind, they saw the snow-cloud tossed
By many an icy horn;
Before, warm valleys, wood-embossed,
And green with vines and corn.
They left the Winter at their backs
To flap his baffled wing,
And downward, with the cataracts,
Leaped to the lap of Spring.
Strong leader of that mountain band,
Another task remains,
To break from Slavery's desert land
A path to Freedom's plains.
The winds are wild, the way is drear,
Yet, flashing through the night,
Lo! icy ridge and rocky spear
Blaze out in morning light!
Rise up, Frémont! and go before;
The Hour must have its Man;
Put on the hunting-shirt once more,
And lead in Freedom's van!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Sentence Of John L. Brown
Ho! thou who seekest late and long
A License from the Holy Book
For brutal lust and fiendish wrong,
Man of the Pulpit, look!
Lift up those cold and atheist eyes,
This ripe fruit of thy teaching see;
And tell us how to heaven will rise
The incense of this sacrifice —
This blossom of the gallows tree!
Search out for slavery's hour of need
Some fitting text of sacred writ;
Give heaven the credit of deed
Which shames the nether pit.
Kneel, smooth blasphemer, unto Him
Whose truth is on thy lips a lie;
Ask that His bright winged cherubim
May bend around that scaffold grim
To guard and bless and sanctify.
O champion of the people's cause!
Suspend thy loud and vain rebuke
Of foreign wrong and Old World's laws,
Man of the Senate, look!
Was this the promise of the free,
The great hope of our early time,
That slavery's poison vine should be
Upborne by Freedom's prayer-nursed tree
O'erclustered with such fruits of crime?
Send out the summons East and West,
And South and North, let all be there
Where he who pitied the oppressed
Swings out in sun and air.
Let not a Democratic hand
The grisly hangman's task refuse;
There let each loyal patriot stand,
Awaiting slavery's command,
To twist the rope and draw the noose!
But vain is irony — unmeet
Its cold rebuke for deeds which start
In fiery and indignant beat
The pulses of the heart.
Leave studied wit and guarded phrase
For those who think but do not feel;
Let men speak out in words which raise
Where'er they fall, an answering blaze
Like flints which strike the fire from steel.
Still let a mousing priesthood ply
Their garbled text and gloss of sin,
And make the lettered scroll deny
Its living soul within:
Still let the place-fed, titled knave
Plead robbery's right with purchased lips,
And tell us that our fathers gave
For Freedom's pedestal, a slave,
The frieze and moulding, chains and whips!
But ye who own that Higher Law
Whose tablets in the heart are set,
Speak out in words of power and awe
That God is living yet!
Breathe forth once more those tones sublime
Which thrilled the burdened prophet's lyre,
And in a dark and evil time
Smote down on Israel's fast of crime
And gift of blood, a rain of fire!
Oh, not for us the graceful lay
To whose soft measures lightly move
The footsteps of the faun and fay,
O'er-locked by mirth and love!
But such a stern and startling strain
As Britain's hunted bards flung down
From Snowden to the conquered plain,
Where harshly clanked the Saxon chain,
On trampled field and smoking town.
By Liberty's dishonored name,
By man's lost hope and failing trust,
By words and deeds which bow with shame
Our foreheads to the dust,
By the exulting strangers' sneer,
Borne to us from the Old World's thrones,
And by their victims' grief who hear,
In sunless mines and dungeons drear,
How Freedom's land her faith disowns!
Speak out in acts. The time for words
Has passed, and deeds suffice alone;
In vain against the clang of swords
The wailing pipe is blown!
Act, act in God's name, while ye may!
Smite from the church her leprous limb!
Throw open to the light of day.
The bondman's cell, and break away
The chains the state has bound on him!
Ho! every true and living soul,
To Freedom's perilled altar bear
The Freeman's and the Christian's whole
Tongue, pen, and vote, and prayer!
One last, great battle for the right —
One short, sharp struggle to be free!
To do is to succeed — our fight
Is waged in Heaven's approving sight;
The smile of God is Victory.
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Freedom In Brazil
WITH clearer light, Cross of the South, shine forth
In blue Brazilian skies;
And thou, O river, cleaving half the earth
From sunset to sunrise,
From the great mountains to the Atlantic waves
Thy joy's long anthem pour.
Yet a few years (God make them less!) and slaves
Shall shame thy pride no more,
No fettereel feet thy shaded margins press;
But all men shall walk free
Where thou, the high-priest of the wilderness,
Hast wedded sea to sea.
And thou, great-hearted ruler, through whose mouth
The word of God is said,
Once more, 'Let there be light!' — Son of the South,
Lift up thy honored head,
Wear unashamed a crown by thy desert
More than by birth thy own,
Careless of watch and ward; thou art begirt
By grateful hearts alone.
The moaned wall and battle-ship may fail,
But safe shall justice prove;
Stronger than greaves of brass or iron mail
The panoply of love.
Crowned doubly by man's blessing and God's grace,
Thy future is secure;
Who frees a people makes his statue's place
In Time's Valhalla sure.
Lo! from his Neva's banks the Scythian Czar
Stretches to thee his hand,
Who, with the pencil of the Northern star,
Wrote freedom on his land.
And he whose grave is holy by our calm
And prairied Sangamon,
From his gaunt hand shall drop the martyr's palm
To greet thee with 'Well done!'
And thou, O Earth, with smiles thy face make sweet,
And let thy wail be stilled,
To hear the Muse of prophecy repeat
Her promise half fulfilled.
The Voice that spake at Nazareth speaks still,
No sound thereof hath died;
Alike thy hope and Heaven's eternal will
Shall yet be satisfied.
The years are slow, the vision tarrieth long,
And far the end may be;
But, one by one, the fiends of ancient wrong
Go out and leave thee free.
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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America
Glorious daughter of time! Thou of the mild blue eye --
Thou of the virginal forehead --pallid, unfurrowed of tears--
Thou of the strong white hands with fingers dipped in the dye
Of the blood that quickened the fathers of thee, in the ancient years,
Leave thou the path of the beasts. Return thou again to the hills,
Forsake thou the deserts of death, where ever the burning thirst,
Flames in the throat for blood, for the vile desire that kills,
Where the treacherous sands by the rebel cerastes are cursed,
And the wastes are strewn with the bones of folly and hate.
Return! where the sunlight gladdens the places of green,
Where the stars comes forth, the heralds of faith and fate,
And the winds of eternity breathe from a day unseen.
Thou! what hast thou to do with a time burnt out and done?
With the old Serbonian bog-- the marshes where nations were lost?
Where wailings are heard of the dead, of the slaughtered Roman and Hun,
And phosphorent lights arise in the hands of a stricken ghost,
Dreaming of splendors of battle that glanced from a million shields,
When the C¾sars pillaged for lust of gold and hunger of power;
And the giants of Gothland festered and stank on the stretching fields,
And the gods of the living were cursed, too weak to reveal the hour,
When they should triumph and others should writhe in a dread defeat,
In the day of thy grace, O fair and false to thy fathers and time,
O thou whom the snares of kings already encompass thy feet,
With thy singing robes besprent with the old Egyptian slime.
But thou hast harkened to guile, to the cunning words of shame,
To the tempter with pieces of gold and the praise of the drunken throng.
Scornfully push from their hands the crown of a common fame,
Not made for thy peaceful brows, for thou wert not born for wrong.
Thou art the fruit of the groaning cycles of hope and love,
Told of by maddened prophets who never beheld thy face,
Who drew from the teeming earth and the fetterless sky above,
That man was made to be free, and to stamp under foot the mace.
How should thy innocent eyes ever leer with a reddened look?
Or thy hair be scented save of the measureless sea?
Or thy feet know the ways of deceit, wrote out in the murderous book,
By monarchs who shrank from the scourging and doom of thy strength and thee?
Beloved of time and of fate, cherished of justice and truth,
Yet thou art free to do, to choose the ill and to die;
To squander thy beauty for hire, to waste thy eternal youth --
For thou art eternal, if thou heedst them not, but pass by,
Pass and return to the mountains of freedom and peace,
Where heavenward flame the fires, where the torches may be relumed,
To girdle the world with the light that was kindled in olden Greece;
Or that the sparks may be scattered wherever injustice has doomed,
Darkness to be the portion of those who famish for light.
Be thou the great rock's shadow cast in a weary land,
Be thou a star of guidance true in a wintry night,
Be thou thyself, and thyself alone, as heaven hath planned.
poem by Edgar Lee Masters
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The Fight For Freedom
There's a sound it┬┤s heard across the land
It's heard across the sea
You'll only hear it if you listen with your heart
And one day hope to be free
To hear the sound of freedom many gave their lives
They fought for you and me
Those memories will always live inside us
Now it's our time to be free
Where the eagles fly I will soon be there
If you want to come along with me my friend
Say the words and you'll be free
From the mountains to the sea
We'll fight for freedom again
So ring out loud for all the world to hear
From sea to shining sea
Let freedom ring and every man be king
To live as one through the years
Where the eagles fly I will soon be there
If you want to come along with me my friend
Say the words and you'll be free
From the mountains to the sea
We'll fight for freedom again
Now┬┤s the time we all must stand together
So raise your hands show them we are strong
Side by side the fight goes on forever
Marching to the battle with this song
Where the eagles fly I will soon be there
If you want to come along with me my friend
Say the words and you'll be free
From the mountains to the sea
We'll fight for freedom again
song performed by by Manowar from Warriors Of The World
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Crown Of Empire
Free is the wind that lashes into foam
The fortress waves that gird the Sea-King’s home
And free the war-worn Flag that is our fame
That fear, nor treason, nor the Storm-God’s might,
Nor the leagued banners of the World can shame
When Britain arms for Honour and the Right.
And free the hearts that on this golden day
Bear willing witness to the Sea-King’s sway:
From world-wide realms washed by the world-wide sea
They turn, O Throne of Freedom, unto Thee.
Homeward they turn from many a lonely place,
Maker of Nations, Mother of the Race,
Homeward to Thee, where, in this solemn hour
Of mightiest Empire, Thou hast called once more
A Royal Son to wield Imperial power
And wear the crown that Saxon Alfred wore—
Sceptre and orb that a great Queen laid down,
Lustrous with wisdom, foremost in renown,
Whilst o’er them shone, all glittering gems above,
The Star of Duty and the Pearl of Love.
Europe is here, and Asia: and the West
Lifts ’mid the throng its dauntless Eagle’s crest.
Lo! They are gathered—prince and peer and lord,
And great ambassadors of mighty States,
And utmost Nations—not with naked sword,
But to do Britain honour in her gates.
The splendour of this large, historic hour,
This dazzling pageant of Imperial power,
Surrounds a King whose proudest boast shall be
The hearts that hail him Emperor of the Free.
O Sire August, within these Abbey walls
To thee the sacred dust of Britain calls
To rule the realm that shook the strength of Spain,
And struck th’ accursèd fetter from the slave—
That tore from Europe’s neck the Despot’s chain,
And, for a pledge of Freedom, o’er the wave
Has set its Flag forever—not alone—
The fairest face that ever graced a throne,
Queen of our Hearts, is with Thee as we sing:—
“An Empire’s love is their’s: God Save the King!”
Unbar your ocean-guarded gates, make wide
Your streets, Imperial City of our Pride!
Hark, with the voice of millions, rolling deep,
The world salutes thee on this Royal morn.
Strong as thine island-rock when surges sweep
Thy throne stands steadfast; round it there is born
The silent vow that prince and peasant make
Ere they go down to death for Freedom’s sake,
And, dying, know sons of their sons will be
As swift to guard the Sceptre of the Sea.
O Pillars of an Empire dwarfing Rome,
From the four corners of the world you come.
The strong Sea-Lion calls around his throne
His ancient heirs, his war-worn younger sons.
Bring Heath and Vine from hills of Southern stone.
And Myrtle, where the twining rata runs,—
Wreaths from our Empire-Garden, where, between
The purple Thistle and the Shamrock green,
The snow-white Lotus by the Maple shows,
The yellow Wattle by the English Rose.
This is a Southern Song blown oversea
From mighty States now linked in unity,—
From that far island continent that lies
Gigantic on the waters, throned, apart,
Robed with the splendour of Australian skies—
First to draw sword, when, with a single heart,
From every frontier line of Empire rose
New Britains armed to meet Britannia’s foes,
Whose voices thunder, as the joy-bells ring
Loud from ten thousand spires: “God Save the King!”
poem by George Essex Evans
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It's The Conquerors Who Write The History
As they chased the wild bison on horse back they whooped and cheered loud
And they were great hunters so noble and proud
But now on the prairies the bison are rare
And the people who hunted them no longer there.
Of the great Northern Land the first people till the invaders came
And their tragic dispossession is a thing of great shame
Conquered and put into reservations for to grow old and die
The rights of Indigenous people to them did not apply.
It's the conquerors who write history as we have been told
And men they have murdered for Land and for Gold
But what matters most when history we trace
That a Country's first people must take pride of place.
You great country singers with your golden guitars,
You politicians and tycoons and billionaire movie stars
There once was a people far greater than you
And to Mother Nature they were far more true.
And the workings of Nature they did understand
And they were the people who cared for the Land
And they were displaced and oppressed and down trod
By those who believed in a different God.
They once were great warriors, wise, noble and proud
And they gave us Chief Seattle and wise Chief White Cloud
And their profound words of wisdom still living today
And such things of great beauty will never decay.
The truth may seem bitter but the truth we must face
That a Country's first people should take pride of place
And around the World Indigenous people are not treated well
Though they have such marvellous stories to tell.
The conquerors write the history as conquerors do
But to the true history they never are true
And the conquered the history never will write
And we are conditioned to believe that might is always right.
The changes keep happening and nothing seem to last
And the great herds of bison a thing of the past
And those who once hunted them were locked away
And in reservations were forced for to stay.
Out on the lone prairie their ghosts still reside
At midnight the hunters their spotted horses ride
As they chase the wild bison across the great plain
The past in the moonlight comes to life again.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Voice Of New England
UP the hillside, down the glen,
Rouse the sleeping citizen;
Summon out the might of men!
Like a lion growling low,
Like a night-storm rising slow,
Like the tread of unseen foe;
It is coming, it is nigh!
Stand your homes and altars by;
On your own free thresholds die.
Clang the bells in all your spires;
On the gray hills of your sires
Fling to heaven your signal-fires.
From Wachuset, lone and bleak,
Unto Berkshire's tallest peak,
Let the flame-tougued heralds speak.
Oh, for God and duty stand,
Heart to heart and hand to hand,
Round the old graves of the land.
Whoso shrinks or falters now,
Whoso to the yoke would bow,
Brand the craven on his brow!
Freedom's soil hath only place
For a free and fearless race,
None for traitors false and base.
Perish party, perish clan;
Strike together while ye can,
Like the arm of one strong man.
Like that angel's voice sublime,
Heard above a world of crime,
Crying of the end of time;
With one heart and with one mouth,
Let the North unto the South
Speak the word befitting both:
'What though Issachar be strong!
Ye may load his back with wrong
Overmuch and over long:
'Patience with her cup o'errun,
With her weary thread outspun,
Murmurs that her work is done.
'Make our Union-bond a chain,
Weak as tow in Freedom's strain
Link by link shall snap in twain.
'Vainly shall your sand-wrought rope
Bind the starry cluster up,
Shattered over heaven's blue cope!
'Give us bright though broken rays,
Rather than eternal haze,
Clouding o'er the full-orbed blaze.
'Take your land of sun and bloom;
Only leave to Freedom room
For her plough, and forge, and loom;
'Take your slavery-blackened vales;
Leave us but our own free gales,
Blowing on our thousand sails.
'Boldly, or with treacherous art,
Strike the blood-wrought chain apart;
Break the Union's mighty heart;
'Work the ruin, if ye will;
Pluck upon your heads an ill
Which shall grow and deepen still.
'With your bondman's right arm bare,
With his heart of black despair,
Stand alone, if stand ye dare!
'Onward with your fell design;
Dig the gulf and draw the line:
Fire beneath your feet the mine:
'Deeply, when the wide abyss
Yawns between your land and this,
Shall ye feel your helplessness.
'By the hearth, and in the bed,
Shaken by a look or tread,
Ye shall own a guilty dread.
'And the curse of unpaid toil,
Downward through your generous soil
Like a fire shall burn and spoil.
'Our bleak hills shall bud and blow,
VInes our rocks shall overgrow,
Plenty in our valleys flow; —
'And when vengeance clouds your skies,
Hither shall ye turn your eyes,
As the lost on Paradise!
'We but ask our rocky strand,
Freedom's true and brother band,
Freedom's strong and honest hand;
'Valleys by the slave untrod,
And the Pilgrim's mountain sod,
Blessed of our fathers' God!'
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The Flower of Liberty
WHAT flower is this that greets the morn,
Its hues from Heaven so freshly born?
With burning star and flaming band
It kindles all the sunset land:
Oh tell us what its name may be,--
Is this the Flower of Liberty?
It is the banner of the free,
The starry Flower of Liberty!
In savage Nature's far abode
Its tender seed our fathers sowed;
The storm-winds rocked its swelling bud,
Its opening leaves were streaked with blood,
Till lo! earth's tyrants shook to see
The full-blown Flower of Liberty!
Then hail the banner of the free,
The starry Flower of Liberty!
Behold its streaming rays unite,
One mingling flood of braided light,--
The red that fires the Southern rose,
With spotless white from Northern snows,
And, spangled o'er its azure, see
The sister Stars of Liberty!
Then hail the banner of the free,
The starry Flower of Liberty!
The blades of heroes fence it round,
Where'er it springs is holy ground;
From tower and dome its glories spread;
It waves where lonely sentries tread;
It makes the land as ocean free,
And plants an empire on the sea!
Then hail the banner of the free,
The starry Flower of Liberty!
Thy sacred leaves, fair Freedom's flower,
Shall ever float on dome and tower,
To all their heavenly colors true,
In blackening frost or crimson dew,--
And God love us as we love thee,
Thrice holy Flower of Liberty!
Then hail the banner of the free,
The starry FLOWER OF LIBERTY!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Summer By The Lakeside: Lake Winnipesaukee
I. NOON.
White clouds, whose shadows haunt the deep,
Light mists, whose soft embraces keep
The sunshine on the hills asleep!
O isles of calm! O dark, still wood!
And stiller skies that overbrood
Your rest with deeper quietude!
O shapes and hues, dim beckoning, through
Yon mountain gaps, my longing view
Beyond the purple and the blue,
To stiller sea and greener land,
And softer lights and airs more bland,
And skies,--the hollow of God's hand!
Transfused through you, O mountain friends!
With mine your solemn spirit blends,
And life no more hath separate ends.
I read each misty mountain sign,
I know the voice of wave and pine,
And I am yours, and ye are mine.
Life's burdens fall, its discords cease,
I lapse into the glad release
Of Nature's own exceeding peace.
O welcome calm of heart and mind!
As falls yon fir-tree's loosened rind
To leave a tenderer growth behind,
So fall the weary years away;
A child again, my head I lay
Upon the lap of this sweet day.
This western wind hath Lethean powers,
Yon noonday cloud nepenthe showers,
The lake is white with lotus-flowers!
Even Duty's voice is faint and low,
And slumberous Conscience, waking slow,
Forgets her blotted scroll to show.
The Shadow which pursues us all,
Whose ever-nearing steps appall,
Whose voice we hear behind us call,--
That Shadow blends with mountain gray,
It speaks but what the light waves say,--
Death walks apart from Fear to-day!
Rocked on her breast, these pines and I
Alike on Nature's love rely;
And equal seems to live or die.
Assured that He whose presence fills
With light the spaces of these hills
No evil to His creatures wills,
The simple faith remains, that He
Will do, whatever that may be,
The best alike for man and tree.
What mosses over one shall grow,
What light and life the other know,
Unanxious, leaving Him to show.
II. EVENING.
Yon mountain's side is black with night,
While, broad-orhed, o'er its gleaming crown
The moon, slow-rounding into sight,
On the hushed inland sea looks down.
How start to light the clustering isles,
Each silver-hemmed! How sharply show
The shadows of their rocky piles,
And tree-tops in the wave below!
How far and strange the mountains seem,
Dim-looming through the pale, still light
The vague, vast grouping of a dream,
They stretch into the solemn night.
Beneath, lake, wood, and peopled vale,
Hushed by that presence grand and grave,
Are silent, save the cricket's wail,
And low response of leaf and wave.
Fair scenes! whereto the Day and Night
Make rival love, I leave ye soon,
What time before the eastern light
The pale ghost of the setting moon
Shall hide behind yon rocky spines,
And the young archer, Morn, shall break
His arrows on the mountain pines,
And, golden-sandalled, walk the lake!
Farewell! around this smiling bay
Gay-hearted Health, and Life in bloom,
With lighter steps than mine, may stray
In radiant summers yet to come.
But none shall more regretful leave
These waters and these hills than I
Or, distant, fonder dream how eve
Or dawn is painting wave and sky;
How rising moons shine sad and mild
On wooded isle and silvering bay;
Or setting suns beyond the piled
And purple mountains lead the day;
Nor laughing girl, nor bearding boy,
Nor full-pulsed manhood, lingering here,
Shall add, to life's abounding joy,
The charmed repose to suffering dear.
Still waits kind Nature to impart
Her choicest gifts to such as gain
An entrance to her loving heart
Through the sharp discipline of pain.
Forever from the Hand that takes
One blessing from us others fall;
And, soon or late, our Father makes
His perfect recompense to all!
Oh, watched by Silence and the Night,
And folded in the strong embrace
Of the great mountains, with the light
Of the sweet heavens upon thy face,
Lake of the Northland! keep thy dower
Of beauty still, and while above
Thy solemn mountains speak of power,
Be thou the mirror of God's love.
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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A Song For The Time
UP, laggards of Freedom! — our free flag is cast
To the blaze of the sun and the wings of the blast;
Will ye turn from a struggle so bravely begun,
From a foe that is breaking, a field that's half won?
Whoso loves not his kind, and who fears not the Lord,
Let him join that foe's service, accursed and abhorred!
Let him do his base will, as the slave only can, —
Let him put on the bloodhound, and put off the Man!
Let him go where the cold blood that creeps in his veins
Shall stiffen the slave-whip, and rust on his chains;
Where the black slave shall laugh in his bonds, to behold
The White Slave beside him, self-lettered and sold!
But ye, who still boast of hearts beating and warm,
Rise, from lake shore and ocean's, like waves in a storm,
Come, throng round our banner in Liberty's name,
Like winds from your mountains, like prairies aflame!
Our foe, hidden long in his ambush of night,
Now, forced from his covert, stands black in the light.
Oh, the cruel to Man, and the hateful to God,
Smite him down to the earth, that is cursed where he trod!
For deeper than thunder of summer's loud shower,
On the dome of the sky God is striking the hour!
Shall we falter before what we're prayed for so long,
When the Wrong is so weak, and the Right is so strong?
Come forth all together! come old and come young,
Freedom's vote in each hand, and her song on each tongue;
Truth naked is stronger than Falsehood in mail;
The Wrong cannot prosper, the Right cannot fail!
Like leaves of the summer once numbered the foe,
But the hoar-frost is falling, the northern winds blow;
Like leaves of November erelong shall they fall,
For earth wearies of them, and God's over all!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The Burden of Time
Before the seas and mountains were brought forth,
I reigned. I hung the universe in space,
I capped earth's poles with ice to South and North,
And set the moving tides their bounds and place.
I smoothed the granite mountains with my hand,
My fingers gave the continents their form;
I rent the heavens and loosed upon the land
The fury of the whirlwind and the storm.
I stretched the dark sea like a nether sky
Fronting the stars between the ice-clad zones;
I gave the deep his thunder; the Most High
Knows well the voice that shakes His mountain thrones.
I trod the ocean caverns black as night,
And silent as the bounds of outer space,
And where great peaks rose darkly towards the light
I planted life to root and grow apace.
Then through a stillness deeper than the grave's,
The coral spires rose slowly one by one,
Until the white shafts pierced the upper waves
And shone like silver in the tropic sun.
I ploughed with glaciers down the mountain glen,
And graved the iron shore with stream and tide;
I gave the bird her nest, the lion his den,
The snake long jung~le-grass wherein to hide.
In lonely gorge and over hill and plain,
I sowed the giant forests of the world;
The great earth like a human heart in pain
Has quivered with the meteors I have hurled.
I plunged whole continents beneath the deep,
And left them sepulchred a million years;
I called, and lo, the drowned lands rose from sleep,
Sundering the waters of the hemispheres.
I am the lord and arbiter of man --
I hold and crush between my finger-tips
Wild hordes that drive the desert caravan,
Great nations that go down to sea in ships.
In sovereign scorn I tread the races down,
As each its puny destiny fulfils,
On plain and island, or where huge cliffs frown,
Wrapt in the deep thought of the ancient hills.
The wild sea searches vainly round the land
For those proud fleets my arm has swept away;
Vainly the wind along the desert sand
Calls the great names of kings who once held sway.
Yea, Nineveh and Babylon the great
Are fallen -- like ripe ears at harvest-tide;
I set my heel upon their pomp and state,
The people's serfdom and the monarch's pride.
One doom waits all -- art, speech, law, gods, and men,
Forests and mountains, stars and shining sun, --
The hand that made them shall unmake again,
I curse them and they wither one by one.
Waste altars, tombs, dead cities where men trod,
Shall roll through space upon the darkened globe,
Till I myself be overthrown, and God
Cast off creation like an outworn robe.
poem by Frederick George Scott
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Kansas Emigrants
THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS.
WE cross the prairie as of old
The pilgrims crossed the sea,
To make the West, as they the East,
The homestead of the free!
We go to rear a wall of men
On Freedom's southern line,
And plant beside the cotton-tree
The rugged Northern pine!
We're flowing from our native hills
As our free rivers flow;
The blessing of our Mother-land
Is on us as we go.
We go to plant her common schools,
On distant prairie swells,
And give the Sabbaths of the wild
The music of her bells.
Upbearing, like the Ark of old,
The Bible in our van,
We go to test the truth of God
Against the fraud of man.
No pause, nor rest, save where the streams
That feed the Kansas run,
Save where our Pilgrim gonfalon
Shall flout the setting sun!
We'll tread the prairie as of old
Our fathers sailed the sea,
And make the West, as they the East,
The homestead of the free!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The Land Of The Dawning
Darkrose her shore in seas of amethyst
By tropic breezes kissed,
A summer land in watery wastes forlorn,
Her ranges floating in the snow-white mist
And gold of early morn.
The tides of Empire ebbed and flowed afar;
The thrones of nations in the dust were hurled,
Silent she slept beneath the morning star,
A virgin world.
Love, Birth, and Death, the stress of Age and Race,
Changed not her maiden face—
Unstocked her pastures and untilled her soil—
She who for labour builds a throne apace
Saw not her people toil;
Down the low valleys, up the stormy steeps,
Careless they roamed at will: the land was free
From desert stark to where the mangrove sleeps
Upon the sea.
There dropped no anchor at her river bars
Beneath the quiet stars;
No wandering sail her silent waters swept;
By waste and scrub, o’er plain and rocky scars
No alien footstep crept;
In feathery billows of her grassy seas
Some lonely mountain stretched its capes of blue;
Only the heavens above her and the breeze
Her secrets knew.
Where the wild grass grew rank on slopes forlorn
Rise fields of yellow corn,
And purple lucerne-bloom makes sweet the air;
The sullen mountain, lost in mists of morn,
Its golden heart lays bare.
Spoils of her pastures crowd full many a mart;
Her glittering treasure calls to many a land;
She has no secrets for the daring heart
And strong brown hand.
The smoke and thunder of her cities rise
To the same careless skies;
Her arteries thread the same wide sunlit leas,
Her fleets stretch forth their wings of enterprise
O’er the same summer seas.
She to the Nations cries: “No Past, no Fame,
No Memories quicken round my flag unfurled;
The mightier, therefore, shall I carve my name
Upon the World.”
poem by George Essex Evans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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