Freedom, Truth And Beauty Part 5

Against his home's invasion this man held A red-coat regiment for seventeen days, Which was a spark to help start freedom's blaze And, therefore, Order Two: the weeds all quelled, Stand sentries till a statue takes your place And throngs shout, "Bravo, Brown!" as 'tis unveiled!

EVACUATION DAY

What is it that today we celebrate With school recital, banquet and parade Of our achievements, pageanting each trade?

The ousting of the English--train and trait-- And posting, then, sharp-eyed, eternal hate To watch with Josuah's son above his head, That night come not to help them re-invade, However wide, we swing our ocean gate.

If not un-Englis.h.i.+ng America in mind And heart forever, vain the shrieks Of Freedom, eagling back to dawn's first streaks.

Oh, yea, the sun stands, and the night afar Holds Thrall, whose craft would swamp our n.o.blest peaks And leave but bubbling mud show where they are!

MANHATTA

Manhatta! Glory flings his arms round thee And proudly holds thee in his high caress.

What charms him, Mother, is thy n.o.bleness Of spirit. How his features beam to see Thy scorn dash in the bay the tyrant's tea, And hear thee call to Boston: "Do no less; Else on sunlight, heart, soul--all we possess-- Will tyrant's next exact their deadly fee."

In thee I glory. Can the world else boast A harbor, like thy heart, for every sail In flight from sea-toss, white with horror's gale, Or icebergs from despondence Polar coast?

Oh, fleets whose throngs, glad Freedom well may hail; For, landing, they became her staunchest host.

THE BURNING OF WAs.h.i.+NGTON CITY BY THE BRITISH

With what wild glee, the British set on fire Yon Capital, beholding in its flames, America, robed in her deeds and fames, In death throes at the stake of England's ire?

Though that was long ago and, then no pyre, The stake still stands; 'tis Anglo-Saxon claims, And Arnolds, bearing infamy's last names, Tilt schools to raise the stake flames high and higher.

Oh, sight to strike the coming ages dead, My country, were a cloud, thy mocking crown, And schools, ignited by Truth's lamps hurled down, To feed that cloud, like craters, inly red!

What! mock with cloud, Thy land and sea renown And Was.h.i.+ngton, G.o.d's Holy Spirit--known By the unerring World Light, that it shed?

THE LAND OF THE GREAT SPIRIT

Behold Ye Here the Happy Hunting Grounds, Where the Great Spirit, called Democracy, Sets every heart and soul forever free, An Equity, not royal grant, sets bounds.

No Phaeton attempting Phoebus rounds And burning up earth's gra.s.s and forestry, Is l.u.s.t for power; 'tis love for liberty, With bloom and birds for wheel-sparks, here resounds.

It is the land of Spirit. "Ye who enter, Abandon first all fratricidal hate,"

Proclaims the edict, blazoned o'er each gate.

There see all tribes chase truth to joy--the center Convexing broad and broader, as more great Their numbers from where prejudice is mentor.

THE BLIGHT TO SPRING

Hark, 'tis the sea! How leonine its roar!

But, oh, how more the lion on a height, As there he glares and listens for the night, Having devoured day's clouds from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e!

Now grows his mane of billows, high and h.o.a.r.

What scents he? Potencies escaping sight, Till, like the cold, they icily alight Upon a land where all was spring before.

The sun darts under earth and east again, What sees he? First the lion at earth's brink With head down to the stream of stars to drink; And then, arising to his zenith ken, Sees that which makes his high, warm spirit sink-- The blight to spring, blown here from England's fen.

THE SCORN OF HUMAN RIGHTS

What is the blight to spring that kills the seed And raises spectres, so that stars cry "See!"

Aghast at forests, white or shadowy?

The scorn of human rights, that can but lead The world from doom to doom! and for what mead?

A bronze for rain and rust, or effigy For nibbling minutes--ah, not hours!--these flee To life's progression--truth and kindly deed.

Look! How this scorn holds freemen in the dark, Except for a flare at will that, then, the throng, Reduced to dust, may rise and whirl along The lift and drop of glitter, without spark To set the spring a-crackling with bird song, Till bud and angel both come out to hark!

NOT THIS OUR COUNTRY'S GLORY

O Country of the Sun's warm plenteous hand To every germ of virtue, how below Thy progress, mope Gold Mongers to and fro, Who think they're vaulting from sunlight so grand, It forms thy chiefest glory. Closely scanned, They are gross worms, each with the thought to grow "The Conqueror," as staged by Edgar Poe For darking planets and a world, Last Manned.

Those worms that, moving, think they move the earth, Or, under Growth's equestrian statue, think They hold the horse and hero from the brink, Are pitifully not a glance's worth, As of thy glory; they but foul the c.h.i.n.k, If not of thee in warming Good to birth.

AMERICA'S GLORY NO FUGITIVE

I

How weird a whisper! 'tis from Wallabout.

'Tis glory hoa.r.s.e with calling: "Raise those hulks Where writhe my faithful." See! the tory skulks Behind the sun who, stooping to fill out Their throats with his G.o.d-breath, to swell the shout Of a free people, finds the brave in bulks, Strewn and held fast where Darkness, beaten, sulks That thrall has been forever put to rout.

Those mangled thousands are not dead; they live, Refas.h.i.+oned men by freedom. Is the tory Behind the sun, to mock me, who am Glory, Being the lifted life those martyrs give?

He creeps beneath the sun and, ghastly gory, Crys out: "Thou yet shall be the fugitive".