America First Part 20

James Russell Lowell

THE FLAG GOES BY

Hats off!

Along the street there comes A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums, A flash of color beneath the sky: Hats off!

The flag is pa.s.sing by!

Blue and crimson and white it s.h.i.+nes, Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines, Hats off!

The colors before us fly; But more than the flag is pa.s.sing by.

Sea fights and land fights, grim and great, Fought to make and save the State: Weary marches and sinking s.h.i.+ps; Cheers of victory on dying lips;

Days of plenty and years of peace; March of a strong land's swift increase; Equal justice, right, and law, Stately honor and reverend awe;

Sign of a nation, great and strong To ward her people from foreign wrong: Pride and glory and honor--all Live in the colors to stand or fall.

Hats off!

Along the street there comes A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums; And loyal hearts are beating high: Hats off!

The flag is pa.s.sing by!

Henry Holcomb Bennett

THE s.h.i.+P OF STATE

Thou, too, sail on, O s.h.i.+p of State!

Sail on, O UNION, strong and great!

Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

We know what Master laid thy keel, What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, What anvils rang, what hammers beat, In what a forge and what a heat Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!

Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 'Tis of the wave and not the rock; 'Tis but the flapping of the sail, And not a rent made by the gale!

In spite of rock and tempest's roar In spite of false lights on the sh.o.r.e, Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, Are all with thee--are all with thee!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

THE NAME OF OLD GLORY[6]

Old Glory! say who, By the s.h.i.+ps and the crew, And the long, blended ranks of the grey and the blue-- Who gave you, Old Glory, the name that you bear With such pride everywhere As you cast yourself free to the rapturous air And leap out full length as we're wanting you to?

Who gave you that name, with the ring of the same, And the honor and fame so becoming to you?-- Your stripes streaked in ripples of white and of red, With your stars at their glittering best overhead-- By day or by night, Their delightfulest light Laughing down from their little square heaven of blue!

Who gave you the name of Old Glory?--say who-- Who gave you the name of Old Glory?

The old banner lifted, and faltering then, In vague lisps and whispers fell silent again.

Old Glory,--speak out!--we are asking about How you happened to "favor" a name, so to say, That sounds so familiar and careless and gay As we cheer it and shout in our wild, breezy way-- We--the _crowd_, every man of us, calling you that-- We--Tom, d.i.c.k and Harry--each swinging his hat-- And hurrahing "Old Glory," like you were our kind, When--Lord--we all know we're as common as sin!

And yet it just seems like you _humor_ us all And waft us your thanks as we hail you and fall Into line, with you over us, waving us on Where our glorified, sanctified betters have gone-- And this is the reason we're wanting to know-- (And we're wanting it so!

Where our own fathers went, we are willing to go) Who gave you the name of Old Glory--Oho!

Who gave you the name of Old Glory?

The old flag unfurled in a billowy thrill For an instant, then wistfully sighed and was still.

Old Glory--the story we're wanting to hear Is what the plain facts of your christening were-- For your name--just to hear it, Repeat it, and cheer it, 's a tang to the spirit As salt as a tear;-- And seeing you fly, and the boys marching by, There's a shout in the throat and a blur in the eye And an aching to live for you always--or die, If, dying, we still keep you waving on high.

And so, by our love For you, floating above, And the scars of all wars and the sorrows thereof, Who gave you the name of Old Glory, and why Are we thrilled at the name of Old Glory?

Then the old banner leaped, like a sail in the blast, And fluttered an audible answer at last.

And it spake, with a shake of the voice, and it said:-- By the driven snow-white and the living blood-red Of my bars, and their heaven of stars overhead-- By the symbol conjoined of them all, skyward cast, As I float from the steeple, or flap at the mast, Or droop o'er the sod where the long gra.s.ses nod,-- My name is as old as the glory of G.o.d, ... So I came by the name of Old Glory.

James Whitcomb Riley

Footnotes:

[1] By Ralph Waldo Emerson, at the dedication, April 19, 1836, of the monument erected at Concord in honor of the patriots who fell in the battle of Lexington sixty-one years before.

[2] Published in the Pennsylvania Magazine, 1775.

[3] Used with the courteous permission of the publishers, The J. B.

Lippincott Co., Philadelphia.

[4] From the National Ode, July 4, 1876.

[5] From the Ode recited at the Harvard Commemoration, July 21, 1865.

[6] From the Biographical Edition of the Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley. Copyright 1913. Used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.