The Magyar's New-Year-Eve
By Temèsvar I hear the clarions call:
The year dies. Let it die. It lived in vain.
Gun booms to gun along the looming wall,
Another year advances o'er the plain.
The Despot hails it from his bannered keep:
Ah, Tyrant, is it well to break a bondsman's sleep?
He might have dreamed, and solved the conscious throes
Of Time and Fate in some soft vision blest:
Sighed his thick breath in childhood's happy woes,
Or spent the starry tumult of the breast
On some dear dreamland maid, nor known how high
The blind heart beats to hours like this. 'Tis nigh!
Lo in the air a trouble and a strife;
I feel the future. Mighty days to come
Strain the strong leash a moment into Life:
Shapes beckon: voices clamour and are dumb:
And viewless nations charge upon the blast
That blows the spectral host to silence, and is past.
Hark, hark! the great hour strikes! The stroke peals 'one;'
Again! again! God! Have the earth and sky
Stopped breathing? Will it never end? 'Tis done.
The years are rent asunder with a cry,
The big world groans from all her gulphs and caves,
And sleeping Freedom stirs, and rocks the martyrs' graves.
Oh. ye far Few, who, battle-worn and grey,
Watch from wild peaks the plains where once ye bled,
Oh ye who but in fortune less than they
Keep the lone vigil of the immortal Dead,
Behold! And, like a fire from steep to steep,
Draw, draw the dreadful swords whereon ye lean and weep!
And oh you great brave harvest, that, war-ploughed
And sown with men, a grateful country yields,
You bearded youth who, beardless, saw the proud
Ancestral glories of those smoking fields
That now beneath ten grassy years lie cold,
Rise! Shew your children how your fathers fought of old!
But we are fettered, and a bondsman's ire,
Howe'er it flash, can only end in show'rs.
Who shall unlade these limbs? Alas, the fire
Of passion will not melt such chains as ours;
We have but heated them in wrath of men
To harden them in women's tears. What then?
Less than both hands at once what Freeman gives
To Freedom? Stand up where the Tyrant stands,
Draw in one breath the strength of slavish lives,
Lift the twin justice of your loaded hands,
And with that double thunder in the veins
Launch on his fated head the vengeance of your chains!
They hear! I see them thro' dissolving night!
Like sudden woods they rise upon the hills!
The mountains stream with a descending sight,
The hollow ear of vacant landscape fills,
From side to side the living landscape warms,
To arms! Yon bleeding cloud is spread! Day breaks! To arms!
Aye, Tyrant, the day breaks. Look up and fear.
To arms! A greater day than day is born!
To arms! A larger light than light is near!
A blacker night than midnight foams with morn!
Arise, arise, my Country, from the flood!
Arise, thou god of day, and dye the east with blood!
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
An Evening Dream
I'm leaning where you loved to lean in eventides of old,
The sun has sunk an hour ago behind the treeless wold,
In this old oriel that we loved how oft I sit forlorn,
Gazing, gazing, up the vale of green and waving corn.
The summer corn is in the ear, thou knowest what I see
Up the long wide valley, and from seldom tree to tree,
The serried corn, the serried corn, the green and serried corn,
From the golden morn till night, from the moony night till morn.
I love it, morning, noon, and night, in sunshine and in rain,
For being here it seems to say, 'The lost come back again.'
And being here as green and fair as those old fields we knew,
It says, 'The lost when they come back, come back unchanged and true.'
But more than at the shout of morn, or in the sleep of noon,
Smiling with a smiling star, or wan beneath a wasted moon,
I love it, soldier brother! at this weird dim hour, for then
The serried ears are swords and spears, and the fields are fields of men.
Rank on rank in faultless phalanx stern and still I can discern,
Phalanx after faultless phalanx in dumb armies still and stern;
Army on army, host on host, till the bannered nations stand,
As the dead may stand for judgment silent on the o'erpeopled land.
Not a bayonet stirs: down sinks the awful twilight, dern and dun,
On an age that waits its leader, on a world that waits the sun.
Then your dog-I know his voice-cries from out the courtyard nigh,
And my love too well interprets all that long and mournful cry!
In my passion that thou art not, lo! I see thee as thou art,
And the pitying fancy brings thee to assuage the anguished heart.
'Oh my brother!' and my bosom's throb of welcome at the word,
Claps a hundred thousand hands, and all my legions hail thee lord.
And the vast unmotioned myriads, front to front, as at a breath,
Live and move to martial music, down the devious dance of death.
Ah, thou smilest, scornful brother, at a maiden's dream of war!
And thou shakest back thy locks as if-a glow-worm for thy star-
I dubbed thee with a blade of grass, by earthlight, in a fairy ring,
Knight o' the garter o' Queen Mab, or lord in waiting to her king.
Brother, in thy plumèd pride of tented field and turretted tower,
Smiling brother, scornful brother, darest thou watch with me one hour?
Even now some fate is near, for I shake and know not why,
And a wider sight is orbing, orbing, on my moistened eye,
And I feel a thousand flutterings round my soul's still vacant field,
Like the ravens and the vultures o'er a carnage yet unkilled.
Hist! I see the stir of glamour far upon the twilight wold,
Hist! I see the vision rising! List! and as I speak behold!
These dull mists are mists of morning, and behind yon eastern hill,
The hot sun abides my bidding: he shall melt them when I will.
All the night that now is past, the foe hath laboured for the day,
Creeping thro' the stealthy dark, like a tiger to his prey.
Throw this window wider! Strain thine eyes along the dusky vale!
Art thou cold with horror? Has thy bearded cheek grown pale?
'Tis the total Russian host, flooding up the solemn plain,
Secret as a silent sea, mighty as a moving main!
Oh, my country! is there none to rouse thee to the rolling sight?
Oh thou gallant sentinel who has watched so oft so well, must thou sleep this only night?
So hath the shepherd lain on a rock above a plain,
Nor beheld the flood that swelled from some embowelled mount of woe,
Waveless, foamless, sure and slow,
Silent o'er the vale below,
Till nigher still and nigher comes the seeth of fields on fire,
And the thrash of falling trees, and the steam of rivers dry,
And before the burning flood the wild things of the wood
Skulk and scream, and fight, and fall, and flee, and fly.
A gun! and then a gun! I' the far and early sun
Dost thou see by yonder tree a fleeting redness rise,
As if, one after one, ten poppies red had blown,
And shed in a blinking of the eyes?
They have started from their rest with a bayonet at each breast,
Those watchers of the west who shall never watch again!
'Tis nought to die, but oh, God's pity on the woe
Of dying hearts that know they die in vain!
Beyond yon backward height that meets their dying sight,
A thousand tents are white, and a slumbering army lies.
'Brown Bess,' the sergeant cries, as he loads her while he dies,
'Let this devil's deluge reach them, and the good old cause is lost.'
He dies upon the word, but his signal gun is heard,
Yon ambush green is stirred, yon labouring leaves are tost,
And a sudden sabre waves, and like dead from opened graves,
A hundred men stand up to meet a host.
Dumb as death, with bated breath,
Calm upstand that fearless band,
And the dear old native land, like a dream of sudden sleep,
Passes by each manly eye that is fixed so stern and dry
On the tide of battle rolling up the steep.
They hold their silent ground, I can hear each fatal sound
Upon that summer mound which the morning sunshine warms,
The word so brief and shrill that rules them like a will,
The sough of moving limbs, and the clank and ring of arms.
'Fire!' and round that green knoll the sudden warclouds roll,
And from the tyrant's ranks so fierce an answ'ring blast
Of whirling death came back that the green trees turned to black,
And dropped their leaves in winter as it passed.
A moment on each side the surging smoke is wide,
Between the fields are green, and around the hills are loud,
But a shout breaks out, and lo! they have rushed upon the foe,
As the living lightning leaps from cloud to cloud.
Fire and flash, smoke and crash,
The fogs of battle close o'er friends and foes, and they are gone!
Alas, thou bright-eyed boy! alas, thou mother's joy!
With thy long hair so fair, thou didst so bravely lead them on!
I faint with pain and fear. Ah, heaven! what do I hear?
A trumpet-note so near?
What are these that race like hunters at a chase?
Who are these that run a thousand men as one?
What are these that crash the trees far in the waving rear?
Fight on, thou young hero! there's help upon the way!
The light horse are coming, the great guns are coming,
The Highlanders are coming;-good God give us the day!
Hurrah for the brave and the leal! Hurrah for the strong and the true!
Hurrah for the helmets of steel! Hurrah for the bonnets o' blue!
A run and a cheer, the Highlanders are here! a gallop and a cheer, the light horse are here!
A rattle and a cheer, the great guns are here!
With a cheer they wheel round and face the foe!
As the troopers wheel about, their long swords are out,
With a trumpet and a shout, in they go!
Like a yawning ocean green, the huge host gulphs them in,
But high o'er the rolling of the flood,
Their sabres you may see like lights upon the sea
When the red sun is going down in blood.
Again, again, again! And the lights are on the wane!
Ah, Christ! I see them sink, light by light,
As the gleams go one by one when the great sun is down,
And the sea rocks in foam beneath the night.
Aye, the great sun is low, and the waves of battle flow
O'er his honoured head; but, oh, we mourn not he is down,
For to-morrow he shall rise to fill his country's eyes,
As he sails up the skies of renown!
Ye may yell, but ye shall groan!
Ye shall buy them bone for bone!
Now, tyrant, hold thine own! blare the trumpet, peal the drum!
From yonder hill-side dark, the storm is on you! Hark!
Swift as lightning, loud as thunder, down they come!
As on some Scottish shore, with mountains frowning o'er,
The sudden tempests roar from the glen,
And roll the tumbling sea in billows to the lee,
Came the charge of the gallant Highlandmen!
And as one beholds the sea tho' the wind he cannot see,
But by the waves that flee knows its might,
So I tracked the Highland blast by the sudden tide that past
O'er the wild and rolling vast of the fight.
Yes, glory be to God! they have stemmed the foremost flood!
I lay me on the sod and breathe again!
In the precious moments won, the bugle call has gone
To the tents where it never rang in vain,
And lo, the landscape wide is red from side to side,
And all the might of England loads the plain!
Like a hot and bloody dawn, across the horizon drawn,
While the host of darkness holds the misty vale,
As glowing and as grand our bannered legions stand,
And England's flag unfolds upon the gale!
At that great sign unfurled, as morn moves o'er the world
When God lifts His standard of light,
With a tumult and a voice, and a rushing mighty noise,
Our long line moves forward to the fight.
Clarion and clarion defying,
Sounding, resounding, replying,
Trumpets braying, pipers playing, chargers neighing,
Near and far
The to and fro storm of the never-done hurrahing,
Thro' the bright weather banner and feather rising and falling, bugle and fife
Calling, recalling-for death or for life-
Our host moved on to the war,
While England, England, England, England, England!
Was blown from line to line near and far,
And like the morning sea, our bayonets you might see,
Come beaming, gleaming, streaming,
Streaming, gleaming, beaming,
Beaming, gleaming, streaming, to the war.
Clarion and clarion defying,
Sounding, resounding, replying,
Trumpets braying, pipers playing, chargers neighing,
Near and far
The to and fro storm of the never-done hurrahing,
Thro' the bright weather, banner and feather rising and falling, bugle and fife
Calling, recalling-for death or for life-
Our long line moved forward to the war.
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Befire the Battle
By the hope within us springing,
Herald of to-morrow's strife;
By that sun, whose light is bringing
Chains or freedom, death or life --
Oh! remember life can be
No charm for him, who lives not free!
Like the day-star in the wave,
Sinks a hero in his grave,
'Midst the dew-fall of a nation's tears.
Happy is he o'er whose decline
The smiles of home may soothing shine,
And light him down the steep of years:
But oh, how blest they sink to rest,
Who close their eyes on victory's breast!
O'er his watch-fire's fading embers
Now the foeman's cheek turns white,
When his heart that field remembers,
Where we tamed his tyrant might.
Never let him bind again
A chain like that we broke from then.
Hark! the horn of combat calls --
Ere the golden evening falls,
May we pledge that horn in triumph round.
Many a heart that now beats high,
In slumber cold at night shall lie,
Nor waken even at victory's sound: --
But oh how blest that hero's sleep,
O'er whom a wondering world shall weep!
poem by Thomas Moore
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
War Song
Remember the Glories of Brien the Brave
Remember the glories of Brien the brave,
Though the days of the hero are o'er,
Though lost to Mononia and cold to the grave,
He returns to Kinkora no more.
That star of the field, which so often hath pour'd
Its beam on the battle, is set;
But enough of its glory remains on each sword,
To light us to victory yet.
Mononia! when Nature embellish'd the tint
Of thy fields, and thy mountains so fair,
Did she ever intend that a tyrant should print
The footstep of slavery there?
No! Freedom, whose smile we shall never resign,
Go, tell our invaders, the Danes,
That 'tis sweeter to bleed for an age at thy shrine,
Than to sleep but a moment in chains.
Forget not our wounded companions who stoood
In the day of distress by our side;
While the moss of the valley grew red with their blood,
They stirr'd not, but conquer'd and died.
That sun which now blesses our arms with his light,
Saw them fall upon Ossory's plain; --
Oh! let him not blush, when he leaves us to-night,
To find that they fell there in vain.
poem by Thomas Moore
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Winds
I.
Ye winds, ye unseen currents of the air,
Softly ye played a few brief hours ago;
Ye bore the murmuring bee; ye tossed the hair
O'er maiden cheeks, that took a fresher glow;
Ye rolled the round white cloud through depths of blue;
Ye shook from shaded flowers the lingering dew;
Before you the catalpa's blossoms flew,
Light blossoms, dropping on the grass like snow.
II.
How are ye changed! Ye take the cataract's sound;
Ye take the whirlpool's fury and its might;
The mountain shudders as ye sweep the ground;
The valley woods lie prone beneath your flight.
The clouds before you shoot like eagles past;
The homes of men are rocking in your blast;
Ye lift the roofs like autumn leaves, and cast,
Skyward, the whirling fragments out of sight.
III.
The weary fowls of heaven make wing in vain,
To escape your wrath; ye seize and dash them dead.
Against the earth ye drive the roaring rain;
The harvest-field becomes a river's bed;
And torrents tumble from the hills around,
Plains turn to lakes, and villages are drowned,
And wailing voices, midst the tempest's sound,
Rise, as the rushing waters swell and spread.
IV.
Ye dart upon the deep, and straight is heard
A wilder roar, and men grow pale, and pray;
Ye fling its floods around you, as a bird
Flings o'er his shivering plumes the fountain's spray.
See! to the breaking mast the sailor clings;
Ye scoop the ocean to its briny springs,
And take the mountain billow on your wings,
And pile the wreck of navies round the bay.
V.
Why rage ye thus?--no strife for liberty
Has made you mad; no tyrant, strong through fear,
Has chained your pinions till ye wrenched them free,
And rushed into the unmeasured atmosphere;
For ye were born in freedom where ye blow;
Free o'er the mighty deep to come and go;
Earth's solemn woods were yours, her wastes of snow,
Her isles where summer blossoms all the year.
VI.
O ye wild winds! a mightier Power than yours
In chains upon the shore of Europe lies;
The sceptred throng, whose fetters he endures,
Watch his mute throes with terror in their eyes:
And armed warriors all around him stand,
And, as he struggles, tighten every band,
And lift the heavy spear, with threatening hand,
To pierce the victim, should he strive to rise.
VII.
Yet oh, when that wronged Spirit of our race
Shall break, as soon he must, his long-worn chains,
And leap in freedom from his prison-place,
Lord of his ancient hills and fruitful plains,
Let him not rise, like these mad winds of air,
To waste the loveliness that time could spare,
To fill the earth with wo, and blot her fair
Unconscious breast with blood from human veins.
VIII.
But may he like the spring-time come abroad,
Who crumbles winter's gyves with gentle might,
When in the genial breeze, the breath of God,
Come spouting up the unsealed springs to light;
Flowers start from their dark prisons at his feet,
The woods, long dumb, awake to hymnings sweet,
And morn and eve, whose glimmerings almost meet,
Crowd back to narrow bounds the ancient night.
poem by William Cullen Bryant
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
An Ode, Written October, 1819, Before The Spaniards Had Recovered Their Liberty
Arise, arise, arise!
There is blood on the earth that denies ye bread;
Be your wounds like eyes
To weep for the dead, the dead, the dead.
What other grief were it just to pay?
Your sons, your wives, your brethren, were they;
Who said they were slain on the battle day?
Awaken, awaken, awaken!
The slave and the tyrant are twin-born foes;
Be the cold chains shaken
To the dust where your kindred repose, repose:
Their bones in the grave will start and move,
When they hear the voices of those they love,
Most loud in the holy combat above.
Wave, wave high the banner!
When Freedom is riding to conquest by:
Though the slaves that fan her
Be Famine and Toil, giving sigh for sigh.
And ye who attend her imperial car,
Lift not your hands in the banded war,
But in her defence whose children ye are.
Glory, glory, glory,
To those who have greatly suffered and done!
Never name in story
Was greater than that which ye shall have won.
Conquerors have conquered their foes alone,
Whose revenge, pride, and power they have overthrown
Ride ye, more victorious, over your own.
Bind, bind every brow
With crownals of violet, ivy, and pine:
Hide the blood-stains now
With hues which sweet Nature has made divine:
Green strength, azure hope, and eternity:
But let not the pansy among them be;
Ye were injured, and that means memory.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Field Of Battle
The Deed of Blood is o'er!
And, hark, the Trumpet's mournful breath
Low murmurs round it a Note of Death—
The Mighty are no more!
How solemn slow that distant Groan!—
O, could AMBITION, wild with fear,
The deep prophetic Warning hear,
And, looking, listning vain around
For one soul-soothing, softer sound,
While near, unseen, the Fiends of Hell
Toll round the wretch his fancied Knell,
Rave all alone!
But, hark, soft Plaints arise!—
Friendship, adieu; farewel, soft Love!
I go to smiling Peace above:—
The Friend, the Lover dies!
Yet, happy Soul to Freedom giv'n,
Go where no proud tyrannic Lord
Drives Man upon his Brother's sword;
Where Angels from thine arms shall tear
The Chains AMBITION bade thee wear;
Where, on the once pale Cheek of Woe,
In Smiles immortal, Roses blow—
The Bloom of Heav'n!
poem by James Henry Leigh Hunt
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Paean
NOW, joy and thanks forevermore!
The dreary night has wellnigh passed,
The slumbers of the North are o'er,
The Giant stands erect at last!
More than we hoped in that dark time
When, faint with watching, few and worn,
We saw no welcome day-star climb
The cold gray pathway of the morn!
O weary hours! O night of years!
What storms our darkling pathway swept,
Where, beating back our thronging fears,
By Faith alone our march we kept.
How jeered the scoffing crowd behind,
How mocked before the tyrant train,
As, one by one, the true and kind
Fell fainting in our path of pain!
They died, their brave hearts breaking slow,
But, self-forgetful to the last,
In words of cheer and bugle blow
Their breath upon the darkness passed.
A mighty host, on either hand,
Stood waiting for the dawn of day
To crush like reeds our feeble band;
The morn has come, and where are they?
Troop after troop their line forsakes;
With peace-white banners waving free,
And from our own the glad shout breaks,
Of Freedom and Fraternity!
Like mist before the growing light,
The hostile cohorts melt away;
Our frowning foemen of the night
Are brothers at the dawn of day!
As unto these repentant ones
We open wide our toil-worn ranks,
Along our line a murmur runs
Of song, and praise, and grateful thanks.
Sound for the onset! Blast on blast!
Till Slavery's minious cower and quail;
One charge of fire shall drive them fast
Like chaff before our Northern gale!
O prisoners in your house of pain
Dumb, toiling millions, bound and sold,
Look! stretched o'er Southern vale and plain,
The Lord's delivering hand behold!
Above the tyrant's pride of power,
His iron gates and guarded wall,
The bolts which shattered Shinar's tower
Hang, smoking, for a fiercer fall.
Awake! awake! my Fatherland!
It is thy Northern light that shines;
This stirring march of Freedom's band
The storm-song of thy mountain pines.
Wake, dwellers where the day expires!
And hear, in winds that sweep your lakes
And fan your prairies' roaring fires,
The signal-call that Freedom makes!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Mater Dolorosa
Who is this that sits by the way, by the wild wayside,
In a rent stained raiment, the robe of a cast-off bride,
In the dust, in the rainfall sitting, with soiled feet bare,
With the night for a garment upon her, with torn wet hair?
She is fairer of face than the daughters of men, and her eyes,
Worn through with her tears, are deep as the depth of skies.
This is she for whose sake being fallen, for whose abject sake,
Earth groans in the blackness of darkness, and men's hearts break.
This is she for whose love, having seen her, the men that were
Poured life out as water, and shed their souls upon air.
This is she for whose glory their years were counted as foam;
Whose face was a light upon Greece, was a fire upon Rome.
Is it now not surely a vain thing, a foolish and vain,
To sit down by her, mourn to her, serve her, partake in the pain?
She is grey with the dust of time on his manifold ways,
Where her faint feet stumble and falter through year-long days.
Shall she help us at all, O fools, give fruit or give fame,
Who herself is a name despised, a rejected name?
We have not served her for guerdon. If any do so,
That his mouth may be sweet with such honey, we care not to know.
We have drunk from a wine-unsweetened, a perilous cup,
A draught very bitter. The kings of the earth stood up,
And the rulers took counsel together, to smite her and slay;
And the blood of her wounds is given us to drink today.
Can these bones live? or the leaves that are dead leaves bud?
Or the dead blood drawn from her veins be in your veins blood?
Will ye gather up water again that was drawn and shed?
In the blood is the life of the veins, and her veins are dead.
For the lives that are over are over, and past things past;
She had her day, and it is not; was first, and is last.
Is it nothing unto you then, all ye that pass by,
If her breath be left in her lips, if she live now or die?
Behold now, O people, and say if she be not fair,
Whom your fathers followed to find her, with praise and prayer,
And rejoiced, having found her, though roof they had none nor bread;
But ye care not; what is it to you if her day be dead?
It was well with our fathers; their sound was in all men's lands;
There was fire in their hearts, and the hunger of fight in their
hands.
Naked and strong they went forth in her strength like flame,
For her love's and her name's sake of old, her republican name.
But their children, by kings made quiet, by priests made wise,
Love better the heat of their hearths than the light of her eyes.
Are they children of these thy children indeed, who have sold,
O golden goddess, the light of thy face for gold?
Are they sons indeed of the sons of thy dayspring of hope,
Whose lives are in fief of an emperor, whose souls of a Pope?
Hide then thine head, O beloved; thy time is done;
Thy kingdom is broken in heaven, and blind thy sun.
What sleep is upon you, to dream she indeed shall rise,
When the hopes are dead in her heart as the tears in her eyes?
If ye sing of her dead, will she stir? if ye weep for her, weep?
Come away now, leave her; what hath she to do but sleep?
But ye that mourn are alive, and have years to be;
And life is good, and the world is wiser than we.
Yea, wise is the world and mighty, with years to give,
And years to promise; but how long now shall it live?
And foolish and poor is faith, and her ways are bare,
Till she find the way of the sun, and the morning air.
In that hour shall this dead face shine as the face of the sun,
And the soul of man and her soul and the world's be one.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Then and Now
"Build me a nation," said the Lord.
The distant nations heard the word,
Build me a nation true and strong,
Bar out the old world's hate and wrong;
For men had traced with blood and tears
The trail of weary wasting years,
And torn and bleeding martyrs trod
Through fire and torture up to God.
While in the hollow of his hand
God hid the secret of our land,
Men warred against their fiercest foes,
And kingdoms fell and empires rose,
Till, weary of the old world strife,
Men sought for broader, freer life,
And plunged into the ocean's foam
To find another, better home.
And, like a vision fair and bright
The new world broke upon their sight.
Men grasped the prize, grew proud and strong,
And cursed the land with crime and wrong.
The Indian stood despoiled of lands,
The Negro bound with servile bands,
Oppressed through weary years of toil,
His blood and tears bedewed the soil.
Then God arose in dreadful wrath,
And judgment streamed around his path;
His hand the captive's fetters broke,
His lightnings shattered every yoke.
As Israel through the Red sea trod,
Led by the mighty hand of God,
They passed to freedom through a flood,
Whose every wave and surge was blood.
And slavery, with its crime and shame,
Went down in wrath and blood and flame
The land was billowed-o'er with graves
Where men had lived and died as slaves.
Four and thirty years -- what change since
then!
Beings once chattles now are men;
Over the gloom of slavery's night,
Has flashed the dawn of freedom's light.
To-day no mother with anguish wild
Kneels and implores that her darling child
Shall not be torn from her bleeding heart,
With its quivering tendrils rent apart.
The father may soothe his child to sleep,
And watch his slumbers calm and deep.
No tyrant's tread will disturb his rest
Where freedom dwells as a welcome guest.
His walls may be bare of pictured grace,
His fireside the lowliest place;
But the wife and children sheltered there
Are his to defend and guard with care.
Where haughty tyrants once bore rule
Are ballot-box and public school.
The old slave-pen of former days
Gives place to fanes of prayer and praise.
To-night we would bring our meed of praise
To noble friends of darker days;
The men and women crowned with light,
The true and tried in our gloomy night.
To Lundy, whose heart was early stirred
To speak for freedom an earnest word;
To Garrison, valiant, true and strong,
Whose face was as flint against our wrong.
And Phillips, the peerless, grand and brave,
A tower of strength to the outcast slave.
Earth has no marble too pure and white
To enrol his name in golden light.
Our Douglass, too, with his massive brain,
Who plead our cause with his broken chain,
And helped to hurl from his bloody seat
The curse that writhed and died at his feet.
And Governor Andrew, who, looking back,
Saw none he despised, though poor and black;
And Harriet Beecher, whose glowing pen
Corroded the chains of fettered men.
To-night with greenest laurels we'll crown
North Elba's grave where sleeps John Brown,
Who made the gallows an altar high,
And showed how a brave old man could die.
And Lincoln, our martyred President,
Who returned to his God with chains he had rent.*
And Sumner, amid death's icy chill,
Leaving to Hoar his Civil Rights Bill.
And let us remember old underground,
With all her passengers northward bound,
The train that ran till it ceased to pay,
With all her dividends given away.
Nor let it be said that we have forgot
The women who stood with Lucretia Mott;
Nor her who to the world was known
By the simple name of Lucy stone.
A tribute unto a host of others
Who knew that men though black were brothers,
Who battled against our nation's sin,
Whose graves are thick whose ranks are thin.
Oh, people chastened in the fire,
To nobler, grander things aspire;
In the new era of your life,
Bring love for hate, and peace for strife;
Upon your hearts this vow record
That ye will build unto the Lord
A nobler future, true and grand,
To strengthen, crown and bless the land.
A higher freedom ye may gain
Than that which comes from a riven chain;
Freedom your native land to bless
With peace, and love and righteousness,
As dreams that are past, a tale all told,
Are the days when men were bought and sold;
Now God be praised from sea to sea,
Our flag floats o'er a country free.
poem by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
New Year's Eve
Night! with its thousand stars, and the deep hush
That makes its darkness solemn! The winds rush
In troubled music, o'er the wooded hill,
And the wide plain where creeps the fetter'd rill,
In wintry silence; but a softer sound
Of melody from man's lit halls swells round
No slumber yet to-night! the hours fleet on,
With converse, song, and laughter's joyous tone;
The young and gay are met in social mirth,
Or the home circle gathers round the hearth,
Or swelling upwards from the house of prayer,
The voice of praise concludes the passing year.
'T is almost midnight now;—hark! hush!—the bell
At once a note of triumph and a knell!
A sudden silence—the quick breath quell'd,
The speaker's voice in mute suspension held;
What thousand thoughts are in that moment press'd—
Past, present, future, crowding on the breast,
As stroke by stroke tolls on!—and then a start—
A sudden lightning of the eye and heart,
A burst of joyous greeting—such as here
We wish you, friends beloved—a happy year!
So speeds time on! scarce seems a moment sped,
Since first we hail'd the year that now has fled.
So speeds time on—but hath it left no trace,
That future hours shall never more efface?
Go, turn to Poland! may her sons forget
Their desolated fields with carnage wet?
Their bright brief hopes,—their struggle, fierce and proud,
With the stern despot ‘neath whose yoke they bow'd,
The lightning thrill that flash'd through every breast,
When wakening freedom waved her eagle crest,
Their hopes upspringing almost from despair,
And burning with a short illusive glare,
Soon to be quench'd in blood? Oh, God of Peace!
Must such wild scenes of carnage never cease?
Is blood “pour'd out like water,” still to be
The price of man's high yearning to be free?
Woe for the tyrant's selfishness and pride,
That hath to man his holiest rights denied!
Is life too poor in ills?—hath death so scant
His fearful quiver stored, that man should pant
To give the earth red graves? Ah! when shall right
Her nobler triumphs seek by moral light,
And learn that e'en the sweets of liberty
Are bought, with slaughter, at a price too high?
And when shall our own banner cease to wave
Its starry folds in mockery o'er the slave?
Oh! blot upon our land, and heavy shame
That e'er Columbia should bear such name!—.
That men, like beasts, should be enslaved and sold
For a base pittance of mere sordid gold;
That women's limbs beneath the scourge should bleed,
The swollen pomp of luxury to feed;
And in the freest nation known on earth,
The licensed thief invade the household hearth;
The purest, best affections of the heart,
And the strong ties of kindred rend apart,
And seizing, fiend-like, on his helpless prey,
Tear them forever from their homes away.
Oh, when shall tyrants learn that human veins
Bear pulses that were never made for chains:
And loose their links before the oppress'd one's band
Becomes a deadly weapon in his hand!
Our brethren found it such;—in southern halls,
The cold damp foot of desolation falls;
Young gladsome eyes that late were sparkling bright,
With the free spirit's joyous gush of light,
Mothers made happy by the bursts of glee
From the gay creatures grouped about their knee,
The brow of hoary eld—all, all are there,
With the pale look of anguish and despair:
Or, smitten rudely to the reeking earth,
Have deluged with their blood their own loved hearth.
Alas, alas, for them! alas, for those
Who still in white-lipp'd terror wait their foes!
And woe for all the oppressors’ haughty guilt,
And the fresh blood his vengeful hand hath spilt!
Oh, Heaven! in mercy yield them yet a space
To speak with tears of penitence thy grace!
Touch their steel'd hearts with thy dissolving love,
And their vile stains of prejudice remove,
That they may learn, upon the negro's face,
A brother's lineaments at last to trace;
And strike away the soul-degrading chains
Which long have hung upon his swollen veins;
That mad relentless hatred may no more
Flood the red earth with streams of mingled gore,
And other new years o'er our country rise,
With brighter aspect and more cloudless skies.
poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
War-Song Of The Spanish Patriots
YE who burn with glory's flame!
Ye who love the Patriot's fame;
Ye who scorn oppressive might,
Rise! in freedom's cause unite;
Castilians rise!
Hark! Iberia calls, ye brave!
Haste! your bleeding country save:
Be the palm of bright renown,
Be th' unfading laurel-crown,
The hero's prize!
High the crimson banner wave!
Ours be conquest or the grave!
Spirits of our noble sires,
Lo! your sons, with kindred fires,
Unconquer'd glow!
See them once again advance,
Crush the pride of hostile France;
See their hearts, with ardor warm,
See them, with triumphant arm,
Repel the foe!
By the Cid's immortal name,
By Gonsalvo's deathless fame;
By the chiefs of former time,
By the valiant deeds sublime,
Of ancient days;
Brave Castilians! grasp the spear!
Gallant Andalusians, hear!
Glory calls you to the plain,
Future bards, in lofty strain,
Shall sing your praise!
Shades of mighty warriors dead,
Ye who nobly fought and bled;
Ye whose valor could withstand,
The savage Moor's invading band
Untaught to yield;
Bade victorious Charlemagne,
Own the patriot-arms of Spain;
Ye, in later times renown'd,
Ye who fell with laurels crown'd,
On Pavia's field!
Teach our hearts like yours to burn;
Lawless pow'r like you to spurn;
Teach us but like you to wield,
Freedom's lance and Freedom's shield
With daring might:
Tyrant! soon thy reign is o'er,
Thou shalt waste mankind no more;
Boast no more thy thousands slain,
Jena's, or Marengo's plain;
Lo! the sun that gilds thy day,
Soon will veil its parting ray,
In endless night!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
War-Music
Break off! Dance no more!
Danger is at the door.
Music is in arms.
To signal war's alarms.
Hark, a sudden trumpet calling
Over the hill!
Why are you calling, trumpet, calling?
What is your will?
Men, men, men !
Men who are ready to fight
For their country's life, and the right
Of a liberty-loving land to be
Free, free, free!
Free from a tyrant's chain,
Free from dishonor's stain,
Free to guard and maintain
All that her fathers fought for,
All that her sons have wrought for,
Resolute, brave, and free!
Call again, trumpet, call again,
Call up the men!
Do you hear the storm of cheers
Mingled with the women's tears
And the tramp, tramp, tramp of marching feet?
Do you hear the throbbing drum
As the hosts of battle come
Keeping time, time, time to its beat?
O Music give a song
To make their spirit strong
For the fury of the tempest they must meet.
The hoarse roar
Of the monster guns;
And the sharp bark
Of the lesser guns;
The whine of the shells,
The rifles' clatter
Where the bullets patter,
The rattle, rattle, rattle
Of the mitrailleuse in battle,
And the yells
Of the men who charge through hells
Where the poison gas descends,
And the bursting shrapnel rends
Limb from limb
In the dim
Chaos and clamor of the strife
Where no man thinks of his life
But only of fighting through,
Blindly fighting through, through!
'Tis done
At last!
The victory won,
The dissonance of warfare past!
O Music mourn the dead
Whose loyal blood was shed,
And sound the taps for every hero slain;
Then lead into the song
That made their spirit strong,
And tell the world they did not die in vain.
Thank God we can see, in the glory of morn,
The invincible flag that our fathers defended;
And our hearts can repeat what the heroes have sworn,
That war shall not end till the war-lust is ended.
Then the bloodthirsty sword shall no longer be lord
Of the nations oppressed by the conqueror's horde,
But the banners of freedom shall peacefully wave
O'er the world of the free and the lands of the brave.
poem by Henry Van Dyke
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
All Souls
I
A THIN moon faints in the sky o'erhead,
And dumb in the churchyard lie the dead.
Walk we not, Sweet, by garden ways,
Where the late rose hangs and the phlox delays,
But forth of the gate and down the road,
Past the church and the yews, to their dim abode.
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.
II
Fear not that sound like wind in the trees:
It is only their call that comes on the breeze;
Fear not the shudder that seems to pass:
It is only the tread of their feet on the grass;
Fear not the drip of the bough as you stoop:
It is only the touch of their hands that grope -
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can yearn and the dead can smite.
III
And where should a man bring his sweet to woo
But here, where such hundreds were lovers too?
Where lie the dead lips that thirst to kiss,
The empty hands that their fellows miss,
Where the maid and her lover, from sere to green,
Sleep bed by bed, with the worm between?
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.
IV
And now that they rise and walk in the cold,
Let us warm their blood and give youth to the old.
Let them see us and hear us, and say: 'Ah, thus
In the prime of the year it went with us!'
Till their lips drawn close, and so long unkist,
Forget they are mist that mingles with mist!
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can burn and the dead can smite.
V
Till they say, as they hear us - poor dead, poor dead! -
'Just an hour of this, and our age-long bed -
Just a thrill of the old remembered pains
To kindle a flame in our frozen veins,
Just a touch, and a sight, and a floating apart,
As the chill of dawn strikes each phantom heart -
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear, and the dead have sight.'
VI
And where should the living feel alive
But here in this wan white humming hive,
As the moon wastes down, and the dawn turns cold,
And one by one they creep back to the fold?
And where should a man hold his mate and say:
'One more, one more, ere we go their way'?
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the living can learn by the churchyard light.
VII
And how should we break faith who have seen
Those dead lips plight with the mist between,
And how forget, who have seen how soon
They lie thus chambered and cold to the moon?
How scorn, how hate, how strive, we too,
Who must do so soon as those others do?
For it's All Souls' night, and break of the day,
And behold, with the light the dead are away. . . .
poem by Edith Wharton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Gigantic daughter of the West,
Gigantic daughter of the West,
We drink to thee across the flood,
We know thee most, we love thee best,
For art thou not of British blood?
Should war's mad blast again be blown,
Permit not thou the tyrant powers
To fight thy mother here alone,
But let thy broadsides roar with ours.
Hands all round!
God the tyrant's cause confound!
To our great kinsmen of the West, my friends,
And the great name of England, round and round.
'O rise, our strong Atlantic sons,
When war against our freedom springs!
O speak to Europe through your guns!
They can be understood by kings.
You must not mix our Queen with those
That wish to keep their people fools;
Our freedom's foemen are her foes,
She comprehends the race she rules.
Hands all round!
God the tyrant's cause confound!
To our dear kinsmen of the West, my friends,
And the great cause of Freedom, round and round.'
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Freedom Or Queen
LAND where the banners wave last in the sun,
Blazoned with star-clusters, many in one,
Floating o'er prairie and mountain and sea;
Hark! 't is the voice of thy children to thee!
Here at thine altar our vows we renew
Still in thy cause to be loyal and true,--
True to thy flag on the field and the wave,
Living to honor it, dying to save!
Mother of heroes! if perfidy's blight
Fall on a star in thy garland of light,
Sound but one bugle-blast! Lo! at the sign
Armies all panoplied wheel into line!
Hope of the world! thou'hast broken its chains,--
Wear thy bright arms while a tyrant remains,
Stand for the right till the nations shall own
Freedom their sovereign, with Law for her throne!
Freedom! sweet Freedom! our voices resound,
Queen by God's blessing, unsceptred, uncrowned!
Freedom, sweet Freedom, our pulses repeat,
Warm with her life-blood, as long as they beat!
Fold the broad banner-stripes over her breast,--
Crown her with star-jewels Queen of the West!
Earth for her heritage, God for her friend,
She shall reign over us, world without end!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Young Man's Song
At last the curse has run its date!
The heavens grow clear above,
And on the purple plains of Hate,
We'll build the throne of Love!
One great heroic reign divine
Shall mock the Elysian isles,
And love in arms shall only shine
Less fair than Love in smiles!
Old Clio, burn thine ancient scroll,
The scroll of Rome and Greece!
Our war shall be a parable
On all the texts of peace,
And saints look down, with eyes of praise,
Where on our modern field
The new Samaritan forelays
The wrongs that other healed!
What virtue is beyond our prize?
What deed beneath you sun
More Godlike than the prodigies
We mortal men have done
We wearied of the lagging steed,
The dove had not a quill
To fledge the imaginable speed
Of our wild shaft of will;
'Ah, could each word be winged with wind,
And speech be swift as sight!'
We cursed the long arms of that blind
Dumb herald on the height,
Dark struggling with a mystery
He daily hid in shades,
As a ghost steams up on the eye,
Begins a Fate and fades.
'If, like a man, dull space could hear!
If, like a man, obey!'
We seized this earthly hemisphere,
This senseless skull of clay.
We drew from Heaven a breath of flame,
And thro' the lifeless whole
Did breathe it till the orb became
One brain of burning soul.
As he o'er whom a tyrant reigns,
It waits our sovran word,
And thinks along the living veins
The lightnings of its lord!
What Force can meet our matchless might?
What Power is not our slave?
We bound the angel of the light,
We scourged him in a cave.
And when we saw the prisoner pine
For his immortal land,
We wrung a ransom, half divine,
From that celestial hand
Whose skill the heavy chain subdued,
And all a captive's woe
Did tame to such a tempered good
As mortal eyes can know.
Who comes, who comes, o'er mountains laid,
Vales lifted, straightened ways?
'Tis he! the mightier horse we made
To serve our nobler days!
But now, unheard, I saw afar
His cloud of windy mane,
Now, level as a blazing star,
He thunders thro' the plain!
The life he needs, the food he loves,
This cold earth bears no more;
He fodders on the eternal groves
That heard the dragons roar,
Strong with the feast he roars and runs,
And, in his maw unfurled,
Evolves the folded fires of suns
That lit a grander world!
Yon bird, the swiftest in the sky,
Before him sprang, but he
Has passed her as a wind goes by
A struggler in the sea.
With forward beak and forward blows,
She slides back from his side;
While ever as the monster goes,
With needless power and pride,
Disdainful from his fiery jaws
He snorts his vital heat,
And, easy as his shadow, draws,
Long-drawn, the living street.
He's gone! Methinks that over him,
Like Curtius in the abyss,
I see great gulphs close rim to rim,
And Past and Future kiss!
Oh, Man! as from the flood sublime
Some alp rose calm and slow,
So from the exhaling floods of time
I see thy stature grow.
Long since thy royal brow, uncrowned,
Allegiant nature saw,
Long since thine eye of empire frowned
The heavenly thrones to awe;
And now the monarch's breast apart
Divides the sinking spray,
Fit dome for such gigantic heart
As warms so vast a sway.
Far o'er the watery wilds I see
Thy great right-arm upsurge,
Thy right-hand, armed with victory,
Is sunburst on the verge!
Arise, arise! oh, sword! and sweep
One universal morn!
Another throe, thou labouring Deep,
And all the god is born!
So sang a youth of glorious blood.
Below, the wind-hawk shook her wings,
And lower, in its kingdom, stood
A tower of ancient kings.
Above, the autumn sky was blue,
Far round the golden world was fair,
And, gun by gun, the ramparts blew
A battle on the air.
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
To The Genius Of Africa
O thou who from the mountain's height
Roll'st down thy clouds with all their weight
Of waters to old Niles majestic tide;
Or o'er the dark sepulchral plain
Recallest thy Palmyra's ancient pride,
Amid whose desolated domes
Secure the savage chacal roams,
Where from the fragments of the hallow'd fane
The Arabs rear their miserable homes!
Hear Genius hear thy children's cry!
Not always should'st thou love to brood
Stern o'er the desert solitude
Where seas of sand toss their hot surges high;
Nor Genius should the midnight song
Detain thee in some milder mood
The palmy plains among
Where Gambia to the torches light
Flows radiant thro' the awaken'd night.
Ah, linger not to hear the song!
Genius avenge thy children's wrong!
The Daemon COMMERCE on your shore
Pours all the horrors of his train,
And hark! where from the field of gore
Howls the hyena o'er the slain!
Lo! where the flaming village fires the skies!
Avenging Power awake--arise!
Arise thy children's wrong redress!
Ah heed the mother's wretchedness
When in the hot infectious air
O'er her sick babe she bows opprest--
Ah hear her when the Christians tear
The drooping infant from her breast!
Whelm'd in the waters he shall rest!
Hear thou the wretched mother's cries,
Avenging Power awake! arise!
By the rank infected air
That taints those dungeons of despair,
By those who there imprison'd die
Where the black herd promiscuous lie,
By the scourges blacken'd o'er
And stiff and hard with human gore,
By every groan of deep distress
By every curse of wretchedness,
By all the train of Crimes that flow
From the hopelessness of Woe,
By every drop of blood bespilt,
By Afric's wrongs and Europe's guilt,
Awake! arise! avenge!
And thou hast heard! and o'er their blood-fed plains
Swept thine avenging hurricanes;
And bade thy storms with whirlwind roar
Dash their proud navies on the shore;
And where their armies claim'd the fight
Wither'd the warrior's might;
And o'er the unholy host with baneful breath
There Genius thou hast breath'd the gales of Death.
So perish still the robbers of mankind!
What tho' from Justice bound and blind
Inhuman Power has snatch'd the sword!
What tho' thro' many an ignominious age
That Fiend with desolating rage
The tide of carnage pour'd!
Justice shall yet unclose her eyes,
Terrific yet in wrath arise,
And trample on the tyrant's breast,
And make Oppresion groan opprest.
poem by Robert Southey
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
To A Cathedral Tower: On The Evening Of The Thirty-Fifth Anniversay of Waterloo
And since thou art no older, 'tis to-day!
And I, entranced,-with the wide sense of gods
Confronting Time-receive the equal touch
Of Past and Present. Yet I am not moved
To frenzy; but, with how much calm befits
The insufficient passions of a soul
Expanding to celestial limits, take
Ampler vitality, and fill, serene,
The years that are and were. Unchanging Pile!
Our schoolboy fathers play in yonder streets,
Wherethro' their mothers, new from evening prayer,
Speak of the pleasant eve, and say Good Night.
Say on! to whom, oh never more shall night
Seem good; to whom for the last time hath eve
Been pleasant! Look up to the sunset skies
As a babe smiles into his murderer's face,
Nor see the Fate that flushes all the heaven,
Unconscious Mother! Hesper thro' the trees
Palpitates light; and thou, beholding peace,
Keepest thy vigil and art fond to think
His heart is beating for a world of bliss.
'Oh Sabbath Land!' Ah Mother, doth thine ear
Discern new silence? Dost thou dream what right
The earth may have to seem so still to thee?
Oh Sabbath Land! but on the Belgian plain
The bolt has fallen; and the storm draws off
In scattered thunders groaning round the hills
And tempest-drops of woe upon the field.
The king of men has turned his charger's head
Whose hoofs did shake the world, but clatter now
Unheeding sod. He turns, and in his track
The sorrows of the centuries to come
Cry on the air. He rides into the night,
Which as a dreadful spirit hails him in
With lightnings and with voices. Far behind,
In the War-marish, Victory and Glory
Fall by each other's hands, like friends of old,
Unconquered. And the genius of his race,
Pale, leaning on a broken eagle, dies.
High in the midst departing Freedom stands
On hills of slain; her wings unfurled, her hands
Toward heaven, her eyes turned, streaming, on the earth,
In act to rise. And all the present Fortunes,
Hopes, Oracles, and Omens of the world
Sitting alow, as mourners veiled and dumb,
Draw, with weird finger, in the battle-slime
The signs of Fate. Behold whom War salutes
Victor of victors. War, red-hot with toil,
Spokesman of Death. Death, pale with sated lust
And hoarse with greed. Behold! At his strong call
The bloody dust takes life, and obscene shapes
Clang on contending wings, wild wheeling round
His head exulting. How they hate the light
And rout the fevered sunset that looks back
Obtesting! How they scream up at the stars
And smite in rage the invisible air! How, like
A swoop of black thoughts thro' a stormy soul,
They rush about the Victor and snatch joys
For all the tyrants of the darkened globe.
Who shall withstand him? Him the evening star
Trembled to see. Our despots, from the first,
Bequeathed him each a feature, and he walks
The sum of all oppression and the sign.
O Earth! O Heaven! O Life! O Death! O Man!
Flesh of my flesh, my brother! Is there hope?
Soul, soul! behold the portent of the time.
High in the Heaven, the angels, much-attent,
With conscious faces and averted eyes
(As one who feels the wrong he will not see,)
Gaze upon God, and neither frown nor smile.
Grey Pile,
Who lookest with thy kindred hills upon
This quiet England, shadow-robed for sleep,
I also speak to thee as one whom kin
Emboldens. Demigod among the gods,
I charge thee by thy human nature speak!
Doth she sleep well? Thou who hast watched her face,
Tell me, for thou canst tell, doth the flesh creep?
Ah! and the soil of Albion stirred that day!
Ah! and these fields, at midnight, heaved with graves!
The vision ends. Collapsing to a point
In Time, I see thee, O red Waterloo,
A deadly wound now healed. From whose great scar
Upon the brow of Man, the bloody husks
Have newly fallen. 'Twas a Felon's blow
On one who reeling, drunk with life, above
A precipice, fell by the timely steel;
Bled, and, deplete, was whole; saw with sane eyes
The gulph that yawned; and rises, praising God,
To bind the Assassin.
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Never Or Now
AN APPEAL
LISTEN, young heroes! your country is calling!
Time strikes the hour for the brave and the true!
Now, while the foremost are fighting and falling,
Fill up the ranks that have opened for you!
You whom the fathers made free and defended,
Stain not the scroll that emblazons their fame
You whose fair heritage spotless descended,
Leave not your children a birthright of shame!
Stay not for questions while Freedom stands gasping!
Wait not till Honor lies wrapped in his pall!
Brief the lips' meeting be, swift the hands' clasping,--
'Off for the wars!' is enough for them all!
Break from the arms that would fondly caress you!
Hark! 't is the bugle-blast, sabres are drawn!
Mothers shall pray for you, fathers shall bless you,
Maidens shall weep for you when you are gone!
Never or now! cries the blood of a nation,
Poured on the turf where the red rose should bloom;
Now is the day and the hour of salvation,--
Never or now! peals the trumpet of doom!
Never or now! roars the hoarse-throated cannon
Through the black canopy blotting the skies;
Never or now! flaps the shell-blasted pennon
O'er the deep ooze where the Cumberland lies!
From the foul dens where our brothers are dying,
Aliens and foes in the land of their birth,--
From the rank swamps where our martyrs are lying
Pleading in vain for a handful of earth,--
From the hot plains where they perish outnumbered,
Furrowed and ridged by the battle-field's plough,
Comes the loud summons; too long you have slumbered,
Hear the last Angel-trump,--Never or Now!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Freedom XIV
And an orator said, "Speak to us of Freedom."
And he answered:
At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,
Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.
Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.
And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.
You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,
But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.
And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?
In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle the eyes.
And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?
If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.
You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them.
And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.
For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their won pride?
And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.
And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.
Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.
These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.
And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.
And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.
poem by Khalil Gibran
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!