PS 3527 
 
 184 S5 — — — ^ 
 
 1917 
 Copy 1 
 
 I Soldier 
 
 Songs 
 
 i 
 
 I I 
 
 i "By 
 
 'David Chalmers cNjmmo | 
 
SOLDIER SONGS 
 
 BY 
 
 DAVID CHALMERS NIMMO 
 
 Author of 
 
 "Nature Songs," "Home Songs," 
 'Soul Songs," "Civic Songs," "Songs and Tales," etCo 
 
 Times Publishing Co., Detroit, Mich. 
 
9^ 
 
 Copyrighted 1917 
 By David Chalmers Nimmo 
 
 SEP 28 1917 
 
 ©C1.A476547 
 
r 
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 To 
 
 The Great 
 
 Spirit of Liberty 
 
 And all her sons 
 
 Who can always fight when there is need 
 
 And alas, alas! 
 
 Often when there is none, 
 
 I dedicate these songs, 
 
 D. C. N. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The soldier and the man 
 
 Is each in other found. 
 Old Nature and her plan 
 
 Them both together bound. 
 The best of all the world, 
 
 Of all the hoarded mound 
 Is still the rare old breed, 
 
 The man and soldier round. 
 
 In every living soul 
 
 There is the soldier breed. 
 As noble as the goal 
 
 That man doth ever lead. 
 In every time and place 
 
 Where Life and Freedom plead. 
 Strong, straight as nature's laws 
 
 They leap unto the need. 
 
 In this tremendous time 
 
 Of warring earth and skies, 
 The passion taut and prime 
 
 All beings energize. 
 All round the rounded globe 
 
 War's lightning message flies. 
 The citizens disrobe. 
 
 The soldier doth arise. 
 
 Next to their living selves, 
 
 To battle passion white, 
 Is something of the rage 
 
 That tyrants dared to smite; 
 Some story of a stroke 
 
 That soldiers feed delight; 
 A glory that has broke 
 
 From man for human right. 
 
 These pages would enshrine 
 
 A spark that has been caught 
 From Liberty's great sons 
 
 And vict'ries they have brought. 
 A spark, a touch, a gleam. 
 
 Of passions great and taut, 
 A thought, a hope, a dream, 
 
 Life's sworded soul has sought. 
 
Dost thou love Liberty, 
 
 Didst ever feel thy frame 
 Burn with the glowing sense 
 
 Of her immortal flame? 
 Dost see before thee now 
 
 Her light and lore and fame, 
 And bearest on thy brow 
 
 The glory of her name? 
 
 If such, look at the book! 
 
 It ought to fit the breed. 
 Strike in at any page, 
 
 Down to the bottom read. 
 If thou it dost not find 
 
 Thou foolish art to heed. 
 Fling, fling it to its kind 
 
 And leave it to its mead! 
 
 May 1, 1917. D. C. N. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 The Grand Army of the Republic 11 
 
 A National Song 23 
 
 The Passion of Liberty 24 
 
 To Uncle Sam 27 
 
 The United States Forever 28 
 
 To Liberty 30 
 
 Germany 33 
 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, No. 1 40 
 
 Arise and Fight 42 
 
 Neutrality 44 
 
 Facing It 47 
 
 Washington 49 
 
 Old Glory's Glory 51 
 
 Old Glory 53 
 
 Fourth of July Song 55 
 
 The Curse 5S 
 
 Stars and Stripes Forever, No. 3 72 
 
 The Highland Pipers , 73 
 
 Scotch War Song 75 
 
 Lincoln 77 
 
 Grant 79 
 
 Peace 81 
 
 Life's Desire 84 
 
 An Old Fashioned Georgia Father 87 
 
 Who Lives If England Dies 90 
 
The Ballad of the Rear Guard 91 
 
 Britain ^^^ 
 
 Brock -11^ 
 
 The Sword of the Free 112 
 
 Free Britain, Free Forever 114 
 
 Atrocities ^^^ 
 
 Dung ^-^^ 
 
 1 22 
 Dragons ^ 
 
 The Man With the Punch • 123 
 
 The Soldier's Style 12* 
 
 A Song of Peace - 12^' 
 
 The Battle of Brooklyn 129 
 
 Belgium 1^^ 
 
 Go, My Soldier Songs 142 
 
" 'Tis not in man, in demons or in Gods 
 To breast the force and win against the fates; 
 But when for laberty they take the odds 
 Impassioned song their mem'ry celebrates. 
 'Tis not vict'ry alone that sasiates 
 Life's hungry heart on her immortal quest 
 But virtue high that fierce annihilates 
 All tyranny, and in the bosom blest 
 Great Liberty eternal consecrates; 
 For life in such is ever self possessed 
 And even in defeat v/ith godlike virtue dressed.". 
 
THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Vv clblllngLUli ±0\JO--lV±0 
 
 In this free land the destinies late staged 
 A mighty strife of humans to be free. 
 The cosmic and chaotic souls engaged 
 And shook the globe as tempests shake the sea. 
 The soldier sworded soul of Liberty, 
 With virtue, truth, intelligence and powers 
 Came face to face with monstrous tyranny, 
 The abortion whelped from nature's pit and hours. 
 The man that is, the man that is to be. 
 The past and future, all high and deep endowers 
 Relocked in deadly strife that shook the eternal towers. 
 
 This called her minions from the dark and deep 
 And nature bound that ever hates the free 
 Sent traitors and liberticides asweep 
 With solid strength to establish tryanny. 
 The consumm-ation of all hopes would be 
 To found an empire on a race of slaves, 
 And their inhuman inhumanity 
 Defied the world and Liberty that saves. 
 The blind, distempered, insane "mine" and "me" 
 Called up chaotic monsters from their caves 
 To hurl the cosmic souls to their eternal graves. 
 
 That was an hour, a most tremendous hour; 
 The destinies had fixed it from of old; 
 Then volcanic and titanic streams of power 
 Through all the sphere like mountain torrents rolled. 
 Then life and man and all the state did hold 
 Were dashed and dashed like waves upon the rocks. 
 All elemental energies were poled 
 Into the strife, and vast electric shocks 
 The whole globe shook with voltage most untold. 
 This sphere of hope that being feeds and frocks 
 Was plowed down to the deep, bare to the granite blocks. 
 
 Then Liberty in her divinest 
 Resurrection form rose o'er tne cloudy height 
 And as an angel that the sun enshrinest 
 Broke through the storm with floods of life and light. 
 
 11 
 
Upon her lips a golden trumpet bright 
 She placed and blew such thunder shaking sound 
 The globes of man were quickened with delight. 
 The free born thrilled, his arms were instant found 
 And soul baptized in elemental might. 
 Though unlocked hell should gird him round and round 
 To Liberty he sped and soul eternal bound. 
 
 Hail, hail Oh Free! From city, field and mart 
 Ye struck the straightest pathway to the camp. 
 From all life's common ranks ye did depart 
 And Liberty saw her own spirit's stamp. 
 No promise bribed, but she thy zeal did damp 
 And prophesied of strife, defeat and graves 
 And all that could invite thee to decamp. 
 Thy answer swift memory eternal saves: 
 "For all eternity with thee we tramp; 
 With thee we free the world of all its slaves; 
 'Tis Liberty or death the free soul ever craves." 
 
 Were ye the rude, uncouth, unsoldier mass 
 That at the front seemed some poetic trope? 
 Were ye the raw, unseasoned, swordless class 
 That never once in deadly strife did cope? 
 Did Peace nurse ye upon some village slope 
 And veteran War sniff at ye with surprise? 
 The citizens of Peace are still the hope 
 When Liberty against the tyrants rise. 
 Professionals feed on too deadly dope 
 To serve the soul pure as the azure skies; 
 The free man of the mass she doth supremely prize. 
 
 When England's liberty and all the world's 
 And all Life's hopes upon one strife were cast, 
 It was the mass, the toilers and the churls 
 Who filled the gap against oppressions vast. 
 Professionals w^ere with the tyrant massed, 
 But thy ancestors on the neck of kings 
 And cavaliers did drive the iron blast 
 That saved the world and hope forever sings. 
 The nation's strength when the shows of war are passed 
 .A.re labor's sons that through the Campus swings 
 A]id their true kindred souls old Nature ever brings. 
 
 Ye came as hosts on that portentous day. 
 To Liberty ye were sustaining hope. 
 Her passions glowed and dreams round ye did play, 
 Till to her eyes the heav'n of heav'ns did ope 
 
 12 
 
And glorious dreams pranked life's ascending slope 
 With nations born, conceived in Liberty 
 And nurtured on her pure celestial dope. 
 In ye she saw the glorious victory 
 Beyond the fields where hosts so deadly cope, 
 A world of virtue founded on the free. 
 The noblest dreams that Life in all her course did see. 
 
 The ruling Fates were cruel and kind. The first 
 Advantage, defiance and retreat 
 Against ye fell, and fiercely free unpursed 
 On your blind inexperience and heat 
 The paling fires that down resistless beat. 
 Life's real baptisms are always cruel and kind; 
 Her victors true first drink death and defeat 
 Ere they themselves and virtue highest find, 
 And both ye found at that Manassas meet. 
 Ye fought and fell; it was a rout most blind; 
 But 'gainst the odds and hopes ye rose still mode divined. 
 
 Then hardened, icughened, baptized deep in fire, 
 Regenerated, reconsecrated true 
 Unto the cause the highest heav'ns sire 
 Ye came again with sacrifices new, 
 Like resurrection hopes the heav'ns endew. 
 The wail was turned into a paean strain; 
 Great Liberty another spirit drew; 
 Humanity purged off another stain; 
 Old Earth and Hope drank wine that did renew, 
 And burdened Life replanned a nobler reign 
 That gleamed upon her sight beyond the fields of slain. 
 
 Then round and round, ye gathered round the foe, 
 On east and north and down along the west; 
 'Gainst Virginia round Washington did throw 
 A bulwark wall to guard her sacred breast 
 When clouds and fear upon her heart did rest. 
 Along the hills, Missouri and Tennessee 
 Ye hemmed them in, and drove them from the crest 
 In many a strife that drained the strength in thee 
 To its last dram ere they were dispossessed. 
 Down, down the Mississippi no more free 
 Ye struggled like the flood when hampered to the sea. 
 
 When flesh and scul to fire and sword were bound, 
 When white baptisms full of death and fires 
 Swept over ye the soldier real was found 
 Who panting rushed with passionate desires 
 
 13 
 
Unto the strife that liberty inspires. 
 Across the nation great glorious sounds 
 Were flung that sevenfold fed the day, and pyres 
 Went flaming up the midnight heaven like hounds. 
 "Fort Donaldson!" was flashed along the v/ires. 
 What word is that that on the moment bounds? 
 'Tis "Shiloh! Shiloh! Shiloh!" like thunder rolls its rounds 
 
 "Antietam" now is rolling on the wind 
 As some victorious soul sweeps swiftly past. 
 The nation glad her soldier soul doth find, 
 Her citizens the need to soldiers cast. 
 Are ye now vet'rens strong? Hear then this blast, 
 As some South Soul on keen December wind 
 Cuts into ye with deep sarcasms vast 
 And "Fredericksburg" doth hiss ye and your kind. 
 But who is this that journeys swift and fast? 
 A horseman shouts while flying mad and blind: 
 "Vicksburg, Vicksburg has fell." It did the nation find. 
 
 Upon the nation's bright an=d natal day 
 Ye climbed up to the very peak of strife. 
 As destiny divine did lead the way. 
 Ye battled for the ^-^^rVl'-, di"-^nest life. 
 At Gettysburg 'gainst shot and shell and knife 
 And charge and charge of elemental might 
 Ye held. and held like Spartans to the fife 
 As twice and thrice the day dragged into night. 
 The continent hung in suspenses rife; 
 The thunders then that gird the throne of Right 
 In elemental peals shook mountain, plain and height. 
 
 So on ye went unto the final close; 
 But why should strength its victories rehearse? 
 It is the cause, the life-engirding throes 
 Of Liberty that are the themes of verse, 
 The glories of all glory they unpurse. 
 Ye marched with Sherman down unto the sea; 
 With Grant slow hammered back the mighty curse 
 And laid again foundations strong and free. 
 Before your strength Lee's armies did disburse; 
 And Johnson saw all hope forever flee. 
 And Liberty, great Queen, did weep for them and thee. 
 
 But stay! Let not a supercilious pride 
 Within ye rise against your fallen foes ! 
 'Tis not the men; it is the cause they ride 
 That final crowns or final overthrows. 
 
 14 
 
Fate struck the South. Ye had the cause and glows 
 Of nature, the momentums of her force, 
 The impulse that the fuiure rich bestows, 
 Dynamics ripe from Liberty's own source, 
 The strength and wear the northern conscience knows; 
 Did ye not have almost a world's resource? 
 Can ye despise the foes that led ye such a course? 
 
 And then ye marched that high memorial day. 
 The nations gathered, all Washington was bright; 
 Heroic men in all their high array 
 Ye marched the march forever on our sight; 
 The march of men that could forever fight 
 For Liberty; the pageant transitory 
 Of marching men illustrious in might 
 The nation holds in deathless, deathless story; 
 The march of men in honor and delight 
 As ever clad the exploits old and hoary 
 And singers still embalm in gladness, fame and glory. 
 
 And now again when fifty years roll round — 
 Oh what a wondrous, wondrous fifty years ! 
 The mighty world a larger soul has found, 
 She mounteth up the undiscovered spheres. 
 And aiding Life great Science now appears. 
 Her towering sons no ardors drain or parch „ 
 But ride the heav'ns, earth, sea and loss and fears. 
 They read and shout: "Ye Gods! Build up the arch! 
 Adorn the day! Gather the cosmic peers! 
 These heroes call! Sing out wind, lime and larch! 
 Come, Come, ye Veterans, come! March once again your march!" 
 
 Again ye come. Ye now form up your line. 
 Your fellowships take on a joyous grace. 
 A snowy glory upon your spirits shine 
 As each doth find and fit his former place. 
 Most noble Breed! High honorable Race! 
 How truly grand ye shall march forth today '■ 
 And may great Strength your infirm bolt and brace! 
 There are the crowds; there the inviting way; 
 All honor and applause as on ye pace 
 And gratitude and fame the ages pay. 
 Are ye already now to march in high array? 
 
 "Halt! Halt!" Fling down the ranks a double "Halt!" 
 Can ye not see this tall and granite line 
 That comes up from the dark and shadowed vault, 
 A column like immortals most divine? 
 
 15 
 
Do ye not see these companies that shine, 
 Now marching up before your very eyes, 
 As glorious as ever fed the fine 
 Heroic breeds and exploits that we prize? 
 Is this a dream or pageantry of wine? 
 Perhaps ye think the morning sun doth rise? 
 They are your battle mates that ride the earth and skies. 
 
 They are returned from o'er "the great divide"; 
 Thy bugle call has brought them from the dead. 
 Now forth they come, march with advancing stride 
 With which ye all into the battle sped. 
 The fifty years rolled over ye have fled. 
 Ye see each old remembered youthful face; 
 They are the "boys" that with the conflict wed, 
 Uncles, brothers, friends, all actual in each place. 
 The very ones that with thee marched and bled; 
 'Tis the old days with magic, magic grace; 
 Great Memory's moving pictures that o'er thy spirit pace. 
 
 Lincoln and Grant, Sherman and McPherson 
 Bring up the line on .massive steeds of might. 
 All bosoms shake as tempests shake the ocean 
 As these great chiefs again come on the sight. 
 Tears of strong men and thunders from the height 
 Fall on the earth as they come on the eyes. 
 That cause and course all spirits did unite 
 And chiefs and men welded in endless ties. 
 Triumphant chiefs, great, noble, strong and right! 
 Ye followers true on whom fame ever lies! 
 All ride forever more the earth and seas and skies! 
 
 Your wild applause greets these who now advance 
 For this is Meade. Ye remember all. That day 
 Forever lives on your unblinded glance; 
 See Sickles, Hancock, Slocum, Howard, they 
 Who held the gap and gave the stop and stay 
 To that fierce charge that Pickett led so well, 
 All now again across your memories stray. 
 See Sheridan with magic, magic spell 
 His fugitives return unto the fray 
 And vict'ries ring on their funereal knell! 
 Full fifty years of change has off your spirits fell. 
 
 And many more rise up straight from the strife, 
 In action clad and glorious on your eyne. 
 Full of young strength and mighty tides of life, 
 Just staggering with the battle's fiercest wine. 
 
 16 
 
The spirit glows; the very flesh doth shine. 
 These heroes with a swift immortal grace 
 Ye meet and greet with gladness most divine. 
 They are thy mates from that far time and place 
 When ye and they fought on the fiercest line ; 
 Thy mates of old rise from the battle base 
 To march the final march with their immortal race. 
 
 And now ye last survivors of an age 
 Of mighty strife and exploits high and hoary. 
 Defenders of the cause that did engage 
 Man's oversoul and all his dreams of story, 
 Remnant from the lightning hills so gory 
 Where Liberty and Life did desperate stand, 
 And whence today a more than sunlike glory 
 Mantles and crowns that then encircling band, 
 Feeble, broken, gray, bowed and scarred and scory, 
 Ye never were more noble, great and grand. 
 Then now ye seem to all this gathered watching land. 
 
 March on your march, your last and farewell march! 
 As now ye move in bright procession slow, 
 Column and wall and flaming streaming arch 
 More wait today than fifty years ago. 
 The age and generation new doth throw 
 Their invitations rich and "Welcome" cries 
 All heaven and earth to ye. There is a glow 
 Of life, and the whole nation's stretching eyes 
 Are reaching up the path ye come and go. 
 Beholding ye the cosmic passions rise; 
 Strange, strange extremes of life doth Life herself surprise. 
 
 Now full in sight, what thunder shout and song 
 From this vast mass rise to the heavens and roll, 
 As cannon great upon the mountains strong 
 Full broadsides boomed in honor of Life's goal! 
 Their shoutings and their passion none control 
 Resemble nature's vast reverberations. 
 Her elements all joining to extol 
 The glorious dawn of her long expectations. 
 The earth and heav'n, man and the oversoul 
 Cry out in their containless exaltations 
 That rolls and gathers strength with new reduplications. 
 
 These musicians, behold and hear! The sound 
 Doth mount and mount to being's highest plain. 
 The past goes out; within and all around 
 The golden age is rising up to reign. 
 
 17 
 
upon, before and round all is a strain 
 The first archangels pause and stretch to hear. 
 As Liberty and Life and all her train 
 Are mounting up the rich prophetic sphere. 
 The march has power, right, virtue and domain 
 O'er man and life and their eternal years. 
 The mighty strife of war, her dead and shame and tears. 
 
 Here is a young and unshorn generation, 
 And ye white vet'rang now upon their eyes 
 Are honor clad, with virtuous domination 
 And held as men that life will ever prize. 
 Upon their bright imaginations now arise 
 Your broken forms but clad in light and fire, 
 Fixed at the height of men, a faint disguise 
 Of great immortals, the figures that will sire 
 Dreams most divine and throne upon the skies; 
 Life's archetypes, the ideals that inspire, 
 Are being formed on ye as they watch and admire. 
 
 See yonder host! They are the last survivors 
 Of the slaves, centenarians with their race, 
 Black only in their countenance, and hivers 
 Of a gratitude that lights each shadowed face. 
 Ye have come up. Ye now before them pace. 
 The opening shout gives way to lamentation, 
 For tears as songs great passions can uncase 
 And this prevails in their glad jubilation. 
 The highest language man can ever grace, 
 Tears, tears and sighs and sobbed ejaculation 
 Greet ye, the men who bled for their emancipation^ 
 
 Approach ye now the Spirits of these states, 
 Fifty Spirits, republican and prime; 
 She towering there the fifty incarnates^ 
 A cosmic Soul majestic and sublime, 
 Superior to the proudest kings of time. 
 That Spirit and those fifty Sisters great 
 Like visitors from some celestial clime, 
 Stand to their height and proudly contemplate 
 Redressors of the world's most monstrous crime, 
 She solemn says: "They bled to save the State. 
 The great Republic lives while such upon her wait."' 
 
 See, see the Hopes, Dreams, Visions and Ideals 
 Of Life and State fill yon rich purpled bower! 
 Though Peace rules there and every virtue seals 
 All honor ye, for ye did re-endower 
 
 18 
 
The dreams, and gave them most prophetic power 
 And conquest rights upon the boundless curse. 
 What commendations and each word like a flower 
 Of lasting beauty they rich on ye unpurse! 
 Faith, Hope and Dream and Vision from the tower 
 Saw in your strife the ideals' noblest nurse; 
 Free soldiers of the free these worlds forever verse. 
 
 Thus on ye move past each admiring throng; 
 Now and anon are thunders of applause, 
 Rich martial strains and choruses of song. 
 Our institutions, statutes, orders, laws. 
 Our sanctities and reverential awes, 
 And all our great, our noble, pure and wise 
 Stand up and bare before the men and cause 
 That saves the world when tyrants dare arise. 
 True Liberty the noblest ever draws; 
 All thrones established in the earth and skies 
 Are stablished on such men, on pure self sacrifice. 
 
 Hark! Hark! That was a most expansive shout. 
 There Massachusetts, the freest of the free. 
 Sends forth her crippled vet'rans round about 
 Some rags as torn and stained as man can see. 
 What elemental powers in both must be 
 When gravest hosts are torn down to the deep 
 And passions swell like waves upon the sea, 
 Mad plunging on with a torrential sweep 
 Through flesh and soul so bounding to be free! 
 Last Survivors! Our strength doth often weep 
 "When on the sight and heart ye and your standards leap. 
 
 Old Glory hail! Forever more all hail! 
 Wert thou not born to set a nation free? 
 Did not a modern soul upon thee sail? 
 Were not man's hopes rich treasured up in thee? 
 Wert thou not called a destiny to be. 
 The leader of the world's most glorious strife 
 And only war in which a man could see 
 A righteous cause calling his passion rife? 
 Standard of Hope! Emblem of Liberty? 
 Thou frontest straight the tyrant's razor knife 
 And these have followed thee with all their powers of life. 
 
 Thy silken folds so waving in the sun. 
 The silver stars outflaming those of night, 
 Thy streaming bands that on like rivers run. 
 With passions rich both crimson-red and white, 
 
 19 
 
Thou art a contemplation of delight, 
 A virtue, glory, majesty and power 
 That feeds the heart of being at her height 
 With something of the Oversoul's endower! 
 The splendors of the sun upon our sight 
 Are not so bright as thine upon the tower, 
 A vision, dream and hope of life's immortal hour! 
 
 When on the sight ye lift your treasured flags 
 So shot and shelled, cut, faded, stained and torn, 
 Though they may seem as worthless worthless rags 
 They far outshine the banners of the morn. 
 Around each staff a glorious grace is born 
 Of splendor, power, of hope and dreams of Right, 
 Till Life and Time are full ashamed and shorn 
 Of all their glory, magnificence and might. 
 Old Glory's soul bursts forth and doth adorn 
 The relics rare with flaming visions brignt 
 Until the world is veiled, the sun eclipsed to sight. 
 
 When borne among a host of vet'rans old 
 Ye march along the multitudious street, 
 What iron frames their mighty passions hold 
 That tear the man right from his granite feet! 
 What elemental earthquake actions beat 
 Into the breast! What fresh volcanic fires 
 Feed visions great as if they were our meat! 
 Electric life far larger than the wires 
 Set us aglow with incandescent heat. 
 Old Glory shines! Old Giory in us sires 
 The old heroic breeds and rich divine desires. 
 
 Hark, hark. Oh hark! There is a blast of thunder 
 That shakes the frame of these established skies. 
 The masses pause and look in solemn wonder 
 At that vast peal that through the azure flies. 
 Who, who in heaven looks down with joyful eyes 
 And honors thus the march that celebrates 
 The victory that heav'n itself must prize? 
 'Tis our immortals. This passion palpitates 
 Ancestral breasts. Our mighty dead arise. 
 This line and march their being so elates — 
 Again the thunders burst, shake heaven and earthly states. 
 
 Hark, hark again! There is a martial shout, 
 A shout of soldiers as in triumphant fight. 
 The shout of men who drive in final rout 
 The tyrant force that long resists the right. 
 Whose is this passion, fierceness and delight? 
 
 20 
 
Who gather now and thunder thus to thee 
 These salutations and songs so rich and bright? 
 Thy Mother's sons crowd to the silver sea 
 And rock their isle with passions glowing white 
 As they behold their own Queen Liberty 
 Lead now the glorious line that made the whole world free. 
 
 Hark, hark once more! There is a mountain song 
 As if some tall archangel of the morn, 
 A trumpet found and now upon the throng 
 The passion blew, the noblest ever born. 
 Hark, hark! The piercing sound has instant shorn 
 The world of all its discord, strife and greed 
 And found the isoul imprisoned, blind and worn. 
 The mountaineers of Switzerland now feed 
 Delight and hope to all that life has torn, 
 As they behold a free immortal breed 
 Marching victorious march and ages golden lead. 
 
 And who are these that now the sight o'er lord. 
 Titanic chiefs of spirit, brawn and bone, 
 Just eyes and front, an arm, a strength, a sword 
 And atmospheres all soldiers instant own? 
 Who are these few their own high spirits throne 
 And almost seem gods to the generations 
 As forth they stand, tall, noble and alone? 
 These fronted first old tyrant dominations. 
 Though unto fame unsung, unnamed, unknown. 
 Life's royal sons! Your noble consummations 
 Have called them from afar. They are congratulations. 
 
 And who are these, twin cosmopolitan souls, 
 Most titanic, almighty and sublime, 
 Great universal natures that might pole 
 All ages and all destinies of time? 
 
 Who are these twain, scarred, torn and stained with crime 
 And yet so great all men doth solemn pause 
 As their weak powers unto their statures climb? 
 'Tis Life and Nature clad in eternal laws; 
 They come to see your marches pure and prime. 
 Great Liberty the world forever draws; 
 All nature, man and life, all join the sacred cause. 
 
 March on, ye Veterans, March! Ye cannot die 
 Though this vast globe shall to oblivion sink. 
 True martyrs, heroes, sages, prophets high 
 Can ne'er descend the night's unfathomed brink. 
 Ye are immortalized and henceforth drink 
 
 21 
 
The morning keen of an eternal day. 
 There is no time or space to those who think; 
 No night or death on martyrs e'er can stay; 
 The spirit grows; the senses smaller shrink; 
 In such as ye soul swallows up the clay; 
 Immortal men and deeds have an eternal sway. 
 
 As long as life grows up out of the past, 
 As long as men shall struggle to arise, 
 Long as desire shall hold all virtue fast, 
 Hope builds her hopes on pure self-sacrifice, 
 So long and longer Liberty will prize 
 The noble host who gave her to her right 
 And throned her to the pure and great and wise; 
 And oft, Oh oft the right hand of her might 
 Shall draw the veil from off Life's blinded eyes 
 And ye shall march upon the unborn sight. 
 The soldiers of all soldiers, her glory and delight. 
 
 March on, march on! Forever ye shall march 
 As forth ye went on that tremendous day 
 When gath'ring storms filled black all heav'n's arch 
 And hell's war dogs did bellow, rave and bay ! 
 But not the storms and not the lightning's play 
 Could damp the zeal that did your spirits flow. 
 For Liberty ye dared the deadly fray, 
 Liberticide, traitor and tyrant foe. 
 Great Liberty shall never pass away; 
 Who with her live, with her pure spirits glow, 
 Down, down eternal time with her shall glorious go. 
 
 As long as this great soldier lives in man 
 And boils like fire at acts of tyranny, 
 As long as his white lightning soul shall van 
 The fiercest front in battles for the free. 
 As long as strength with virtue like the sea 
 Shall pledge themselves before the Universe 
 The chattle thralls of Life and Liberty, 
 So long shall ye outlive the strife and curse 
 Inspiring all. Though blackest storms may be 
 Ye shall burst forth from all that doth immerse, 
 Your bannered lines shall march to great musicians' verse, 
 
 March on! March on! Ye shall forever march! 
 Whenever the immortal free arise 
 And pass through Fame's eternal sunlike arch 
 Ye and your deeds will march and all surprise. 
 Unborn generations will lift their eyes 
 
 22 
 
Unto the vision, and tropic thunder sound 
 Of vast applause shall shake the vaulted skies. 
 Man's passions and his richest globe shall bound 
 To ye who gave the world her highest prize. 
 The man in man by man is always found, 
 Men in their highest form shall ever gird ye round. 
 
 March on! March on! Upon imagination's dreams 
 And her swift lightning and creating sight 
 Ye shall arise, and thoughts like sunlike streams 
 Shall Sudden start with fierceness of delight 
 And see on ye life splendors flashing bright. 
 Then one with you Upon your high careers, 
 Reliving o'er the history of that fight 
 And following through the lightning blasted years, 
 Man shall be lost and find in you his might; 
 And he .shall sing and crown you on the spheres, 
 Sometimes in silence stand and sometimes bowed in tears. 
 
 A NATIONAL SONG 
 Tune: Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean. 
 Try to sing this. 
 
 Oh Union, the first of the nations! 
 
 Oh States that old Freedom enring! 
 As mountains are strong in their stations 
 
 Around thee we stand and Will sing. 
 Thy States be forever united! 
 
 No star from its splendor e'er pale! 
 Each sister unblighting, unblighted ! 
 Hail, hail. Mighty Union, Oh hail! 
 Hail, hail, Mighty Union, Oh hail! 
 
 The states of our birth, strength and pride! 
 Each state and the Union forever! 
 Hail, hail through all time and all tide! 
 
 The Pilgrims, their sons and their daughters, 
 
 With liberty, faith, God and hope. 
 Bold steered through the untraveled waters 
 
 To build on this rock frowning slope. 
 They conquered with nature's wild passion; 
 
 An empire with virtue did sow; 
 To their spirit and high kingly fashion, 
 
 Grow, grow. Mighty Union, Oh grow! 
 Grow, grow. Mighty Union, Oh grow! 
 
 The states of our birth, strength and pride! 
 
 23 
 
Each state and the Union forever! 
 
 Grow, grow through all time and all tide! 
 
 When the Mother became the oppressor 
 
 And gave us the sword not the shield, 
 A Washington rose the redressor, 
 
 His name on thy forehead is sealed. 
 When division again shook the nation 
 And trembled each pillar and arch, 
 A Lincoln restored thee to station, 
 
 March, march, Mighty Union, Oh march! 
 March, march. Mighty Union, Oh march! 
 
 The states of our birth, strength and pride! 
 Each state and the Union forever! 
 
 March, march through all time and all tide! 
 
 Thy brow be encircled with glory! 
 
 Thy heart filled with faith, love and truth! 
 Thy fame be embalmed in our story 
 
 By manhood, by age and by youth! 
 A Wisdom! A Power! A Defender! 
 
 A wealth giving nations thy gain! 
 A Virtue! An Honor! A Splendor! 
 Reign, reign, Mighty Union, Oh reign! 
 Reign, reign, Mighty Union, Oh reign! 
 
 The states of our birth, strength and pride! 
 Each state and the Union forever! 
 
 Reign, reign, through all time and all tide! 
 
 THE PASSION OF LIBERTY 
 
 Great Liberty, Great Liberty, 
 
 Thy soul in mine is flowing^ 
 A crimson, crimson stream of life 
 
 Is bursting, flaming, glowing! 
 The passion purest of all life 
 
 Is through and through me sweeping; 
 The fountains of the oversoul 
 
 With fulness now are leaping. 
 
 Flow in. Oh Soul and overflow! 
 
 Time's sordid life is fleeing; 
 This fellowship is life divine; 
 
 Thy soul my soul is freeing. 
 Rich visions of a virtuous world 
 
 My spirit now is seeing, 
 
 24 
 
And I am mounting up the steep 
 Where life and love have being. 
 
 Before mine eyes I see the dreams 
 
 Beneath the golden arches. 
 Within my brain great kingly thoughts 
 
 Move in majestic marches. 
 My heart does like a hammer beat 
 
 With an immortal passion. 
 I feel thy spirit lift my frame 
 
 Up to a hero's fashion. 
 
 I'm thrilling, thrilling to the deep, 
 
 White glowing like a fire; 
 A mountain stream doth through me leap 
 
 With fierce and swift desire 
 No fear of death, no love of life 
 
 Now through my being courses, 
 But passion's tide with snorting pride 
 
 And all her dreams and forces. 
 
 All round the earth whatever men 
 
 Rise up in Freedom's battle. 
 Soul snorts as like a warhorse then, 
 
 Swift joins them as a chattle. 
 In every war for liberty 
 
 I feel my spirit fighting, 
 Locked in the struggle to be free, 
 
 And Life's assassins smiting. 
 
 I'm now upon the fiercest line 
 
 With royal soldiers olden. 
 The sword is like the lightning free, 
 
 The odds but more embolden. 
 On, on for Liberty and Life! 
 
 Drive, drive them to their portals! 
 We never were so much of men, 
 
 So near the great immortals. 
 
 "Oh give me liberty or death!" 
 
 They went to battle singing. 
 Responding to the war song flung 
 
 The spirit up is springing. 
 "Oh give me liberty or death!" 
 
 Has ever been my story. 
 A fighting place by Liberty 
 
 Is all I ask of glory. 
 
 25 
 
Flow in, Oh soul and overflow! 
 
 Time's sordid life is fleeing; 
 This fellowship is life divine; 
 
 Thy soul my soul is freeing. 
 Rich visions of a virtuous world 
 
 My spirit now is seeing. 
 And I am mounting up the steep 
 
 Where life and love have being, 
 
 I'm reading now the hook of life ; 
 
 Slow turning o'er its pages, 
 Of sense and hate and greed and strife. 
 
 Of poets, priests and sages; 
 But this has now my passion stirred 
 
 And man is marching glorious. 
 For free men from the tyrants there 
 
 Made man again victorious. 
 
 In mighty cities great and vast 
 
 That rarely read the story, 
 I sit me down and reap the peace 
 
 Of free men slain and gory. 
 The thoughtful times, the virtuous state 
 
 When war is past and hoary 
 I travel, stand and contemplate 
 
 Great Freedom's grace and glory. 
 
 A flash, a sound, a breath, a spark 
 
 Doth set mv spirit flaming; 
 A white candescent focused fire 
 
 The very flesh is claiming. 
 In her own soul of glorious life 
 
 Great Liberty immerses. 
 And I am lost and found divine 
 
 In most immortal verses. 
 
 Forever hence round Liberty 
 
 Be banners, march and singing T 
 All down the ages send the song 
 
 Like thunder echoes ringing! 
 "Let Liberty these mortals van 
 
 As long as earth goes swinging 
 For she is mother of the man 
 
 To which great Hope is clinging!^'' 
 
 Flow in. Oh soul and overflow! 
 
 Time's sordid life is fleeing; 
 This fellowship is life divine; 
 
 2G 
 
Thy soul my soul is freeing. 
 Hich visions of a virtuous world 
 
 My spirit now is seeing. 
 And I am mounting up the steep 
 
 Where life and love have being. 
 
 TO UNCLE SAM 
 
 All hail to the man of the western sphere, 
 
 The man that is a man indeed; 
 Bring the ancient kings and the landed peer 
 
 To measure the man we hreed. 
 He has scepter, throne and an empire vast, 
 
 Place, honor and rank and birth. 
 In man that is man has old nature massed 
 The gfts that outweigh the earth. 
 
 He's the man of the ripe, round earth. 
 
 The hope of his mother's mirth. 
 The elements, passion and power. 
 Enthrone him and crown with endower, 
 The man of the ripe round earth. 
 
 Both the North and South, both the East and West> 
 
 Mount, river and pulsing plain. 
 Fed the elements raw to his bulwarked breast 
 
 And fire to his lightning brain. 
 Like a granite base, like a mountain head, 
 
 As strong as the earth's backbone; 
 Tall, erect and wise and immortal fed. 
 He's a man that the world can own- 
 
 He's the man of the ripe, round earth. 
 
 The hope of his mother's mirth. 
 The elements, passion and power. 
 Enthrone him and crown with endower, 
 The man of the ripe, round earth. 
 
 Prom sea to the sea, from gulf to the line, 
 
 He travels as never a king. 
 From mountain and plain, sea, city and mme, 
 
 Hosts swift to his banners spring. 
 Man is true to man, as earth to the earth, 
 
 When man and the elements prohe, 
 And the masses rise in a nobler birth 
 To follow him round the globe. 
 
 He's the man of the ripe, round earth 
 
 The hope of his mother's mirth. 
 The elements, passion and power, 
 
 27 
 
Enthrone him and crown with endower, 
 The man of the ripe, round earth. 
 
 'Tis a greater world and a greater man 
 
 On the morning's golden skies. 
 Every day Life strikes out a higher plan 
 
 And a higher state must rise. 
 To the vision high from the strain and strife 
 
 The Republic hopes in thee, 
 Thou man of its birth, of its higher life, 
 Faith, freedom and destiny. 
 
 He's the man of the ripe, round earth, 
 
 The hope of his mother's mirth. 
 The elements, passion and power, 
 Enthrone him and crown with endower. 
 The man of the ripe, round earth. 
 
 "THE UNITED STATES FOREVER" 
 
 Great nations live. The splendors rise 
 
 Along the circling aeons. 
 Each loyal race allegiance cries 
 
 And shakes the earth with paens- 
 In this new sphere old nature brings 
 • Her last of state creations. 
 Another race allegiance sings 
 And shakes the elder nations. 
 
 My State and these United States, 
 
 Thy praises cease shall never! 
 Oft now and then I'll fling the weights 
 
 That would unconscious sever. 
 And shout for these United States, 
 "The United States forever!" 
 
 The North and South each other greet: 
 
 "Thou art my very brother!" 
 The East and West together meet: 
 
 "A son of my old mother!" 
 From shore to shore, from gulf to line. 
 
 Are men strong as the mountains. 
 Are women fair with life divine. 
 And children glad as fountains. 
 
 My State and these United States, 
 
 Thy praises cease shall never! 
 Oft now and then I'll fling the weights 
 That would unconscious sever, 
 
 28 
 
And shout for these United States, 
 "The United States forever!" 
 
 Here Life has struck her richest roots; 
 
 Her boughs reach unto heaven; 
 The heavy laden, ripest fruits 
 
 Are sheltered from all levin. 
 Here Liberty, the Queen of life. 
 To kingly sense is bringing 
 The masses from the night and strife. 
 And round her ^:hey are singing: 
 
 My State and these United States, 
 
 Thy praises cease shall never: 
 Oft now and then I'll fling the weights 
 
 That would unconscious sever. 
 And shout for these United States, 
 "The United States forever!" 
 
 The future calls, Who, who shall lead 
 
 The world in higher courses? 
 Oh Nation great, forever breed 
 
 The peaceful man and forces! 
 
 But when entangled in the strife. 
 
 Belt, belt the passions tighter! 
 
 Still make our man the lord of life 
 
 Yet leave in him the fighter. 
 
 My State and these United States, 
 
 Thy praises cease shall never! 
 Oft now and then I'll fling the weights 
 
 That would unconscious sever. 
 And shout for these United States, 
 "The United States forever!" 
 
 Be wise and just; be strong and free; 
 
 Advancing, clean, victorious; 
 Translating into thine from Thee 
 
 Thy higher soul so glorious. 
 Forever let great Liberty 
 
 Lead on thy mighty marches! 
 Thy future then shall brighter be 
 Along these golden arches. 
 
 My State and these United States, 
 
 Thy praises cease shall never! 
 Oft now and then I'll fling the weights 
 
 That would unconscious sever. 
 And shout for these United States, 
 "The United States forever!" 
 
 29 
 
TO LIBERTY 
 
 Great Spirit of the World ! Divinest Soul ! 
 Rich character for cosmic domination! 
 Time's highest Hope and mankind's solar Goal 
 To mount and guide and rule this recreation! 
 Look on the hour! Behold our civilization! 
 Intelligence, religion, art and science. 
 All fruit and lore of man's long tribulation, 
 All, all with which Hope dares to ,strike alliance, 
 Life at her best, Faith on her lofty station 
 And thou thyself are blasphemed with defiance 
 And Death against all deals destruction's swift appliance. 
 
 Two nations prime, the wisest of the earth. 
 The leaders of the powers that recreate. 
 Whose union firm might bring to glorious birth 
 What poets dream and prophets pray for state. 
 These mighty twain with monstroas murderous hate, 
 Armed with invention, science, wealth and power, 
 Each other seek to swift annihilate 
 In their gigantic passions that devour. 
 Behold the strife! It gathers woe and weight. 
 Destruction rides on the abandoned hour. 
 Oh what a sight for Life from her beholding tower! 
 
 Wert thou not there Man would stand back in dread 
 And pour a vast infinitudinal curse 
 Acros,s the mounts of mangled mangled dead; 
 But thou art there and who would dare unpurse 
 A judgment on the strifes that thou dost nurse? 
 Great Freedom's wars are blessings in disguise, 
 Purging from life diseases vastly worse. 
 Giving the world its highest hope and prize. 
 For all our loss thou dost us reimburse. 
 Out of the strifes a growing peace doth rise; 
 Out of thy slaughtered dead new man and earth and skies. 
 
 For thou art .still the queenliest of queens! 
 True heaven born! A god begotten Soul! 
 All spirits wise that travel this terrene 
 Fly unto thee what time the tempests roll. 
 The globe of man is sacrifice and toll 
 To save thy life, for thou must ever be 
 The one true hope the world alone can pole. 
 Thou hast eternal conquest on the^free. 
 Cheap were the loss if thou art still life's goal. 
 When dark defeat and death ride over thee, 
 Woe, woe unto the world! All hopes out of her flee. 
 
 30 
 
But why, Oh Soul, why is this travailing strife 
 With all great things thou bringest into earth? 
 The very thoughts that quicken now our life 
 Have cost the souls that gave their being birth. 
 All vital hopes of rich transcendent worth 
 Live by the price of thousands that are slain. 
 Rear life's ideal upon this blasted dearth 
 And more it costs than doth a battle plain. 
 Lift man and inch out of his selfiish mirth 
 And noble hosts must perish or be slain. 
 Oh what a mighty cost for all we slowly gain! 
 
 Must such a price, such awful price be paid 
 For human rights by every generation? 
 The world's wide path by noblest dead o'er laid 
 As up she mounts unto her golden station! 
 And must we now in this new recreation 
 Pay out in blood and pure self sacrifice 
 A corresponding toll on civilization? 
 Oh Liberty, Life's highest hope and prize! 
 Why must we pay at every exaltation 
 A vaster price of strife and crime and sighs. 
 Still vaster fields of blood and dead before our eyes? 
 
 Is this the last and consummating price 
 Or but a stage in an eternal strife? 
 High heav'n forbid! This slaughter rank suffice 
 And drive .stern truth into the heart of life! 
 Oh let some sword sharp as the lightning's knife 
 Pierce to the quick of human brain and heart! 
 Let loss and grief and torturing anguish rife 
 Shear off the fat and thinking power impart! 
 Let "living thought" bring as a travailing wife 
 The heav'n born, high philosophies that dart 
 Out of life's golden hours, out of her sunlike chart! 
 
 But still the vast gigantic stain and strife 
 Comes up and rests upon the bulging eyes. 
 Colossal crime doth paralyze all Life 
 Or bows her down in vast unlanguaged sighs 
 As on long lines dread slaughterings arise. 
 The elements are on gigantic scales; 
 The forces drive as raining lightning flies; 
 Life wrings her hands; old Europe weeping cries; 
 The hungry gulf for human carnage cries; 
 The fathers stand; the sons destruction hails; 
 Vast fields of blood and death the granite spirit quails, 
 
 31 
 
Great Spirit hark and hear! Oh is it not 
 In thy resource to bring an age and race 
 When wars shall cease! This murdering passion hot 
 Couldst thou not draw and hurl it to its place 
 In deepest hell, forever in disgrace! 
 Couldst thou not bring the races of the free 
 Into the bonds the whole world shall embrace 
 And let thy wisest, noblest spirits be 
 A recreating congress that shall base 
 Another age on air and land and sea 
 When Life shall mount the steeps in fellowship with Thee! 
 
 If thou wouldst call an international meet 
 Would States not send their choicest spirits prime! 
 Would Life not rise and them with gladness greet 
 And bare most bare this vast gigantic crime 
 That flings her back a hundred years in time! 
 Would not break forth pleas of a clarion sound! 
 Come vast appeals in languages sublime! 
 Rise mighty prayers from passions most prof uond! 
 And paean songs to heaven soaring climb! 
 Man's highest hopes would instant upward bound 
 And white electric life earth circle round and round. 
 
 Where e'er thou art, fight on unto the end! 
 Out of the strife victoriously emerge! 
 Gather thy powers! Thy fallen foes befriend! 
 Upon the world with unsheathed sword, Oh urge 
 An international council that shall purge 
 The ancient curse, a central right and power 
 Establish and cast on wind and surge 
 An order to disarmor every tower! 
 Go thou as deep as life's eternal dirge! 
 The parliament of man all nations rich endower 
 And strife and death and war mankind no more devour. 
 
 This is thy work. Thy struggle but to be 
 Is almost done. Now unto thee we plead 
 Out of the heart of torn humanity 
 To send the peaceful, law abiding breed 
 That thine own soul and noblest virtues feed! 
 Send us the age and race when life shall be 
 Purged more than thrice from this infernal greed, 
 The parent of the deadly strife we see! 
 Oh bring the times, the man and state decreed 
 By Life's immortal visions of the free. 
 The generations high that fellowship with thee! 
 
 32 
 
Reign on, reign on, Great Liberty, still reign! 
 Thou art life's richest, noblest, mo,st divine! 
 What thou canst do and be and give and gain 
 To human kind under thj curse malign 
 No prophet dreams or poet songs can sign. 
 Thy past has been a struggle but to be 
 And thy rich heart of pure purpureal wine, 
 As deep and full as is the boundless sea, 
 Has never poured its fulness into thine. 
 When comes the world and ages of the free 
 Most glorious, glorious dreams will follow thine and thee. 
 
 GERMANY 
 
 Oh Germany! Great soul of Germany! 
 Thou spirit of this cosmic climbing age! 
 Thou nature that old nature brought to be 
 A sceptered power, and whom the primal Sage 
 Mad 3 such a soul all great souls must engage! 
 Life must behold the world wide travailing globe, 
 Must see the strifes all so infernal wage 
 And feel the knife all thinkers pierce and probe. 
 We must see thee in this gigantic rage 
 That bare unto thy essence doth disrobe 
 In fiercer fiercer fires than e'er was dreamed by Job. 
 
 What passion, thought, reproaches, sigh and plea 
 And images before us sudden leap 
 When we behold the virtues stored in thee 
 And then this strife! Oh who could silence keep 
 When we behold from nature's barren sweep 
 A state built up with riches rare and rife, 
 Then plunge in war just when about to reap 
 Full science and dominion over life! 
 Who would not pause, stand silent, sigh and weep 
 To see thee fling such harvest to the strife 
 That every soul on earth arms with a lightning knife! 
 
 Thou wert a joy, a hope and noble pride 
 To Order, Science, Industry and Art. 
 The great World-Soul upon thy state did ride 
 And all potentials vast within her heart 
 To thee as her dispensator did part. 
 The cosmic and prophetic soul of earth 
 Beheld the contributions thou didst bart 
 And thought of thee with hopefulness and mirth. 
 
 33 
 
Lore, books and men and deeds that were a chart 
 To heaven's gates thou gavest to the dearth; 
 All hierarchs of thought held thee a glorious birth. 
 
 No wise and thinking spirit round the earth 
 But thought of thee as its own kith and kind. 
 The gifted soul transcends its place of birth 
 And in the strangest foreigners oft find 
 The fellowship that feeds and hath divined. 
 And such wert thou, a living thinking soul, 
 A part of that high cosmic life and mind 
 That through all strong and gifted spirits roll. 
 When undersouls the overspirits bind 
 It is a joy to pay the priceless toll; 
 All are one kith and kind who fellowship the goal- 
 
 Unto the future thou didst promise more, 
 Far more than all delivered to the past. 
 These dreams, inventions, scientific lore 
 Time's surface seemed to offer have been grasped 
 And Life into the modern world has clasped. 
 Those richer far with vast resources fraught. 
 Those locked and locked in nature's secret fast. 
 Those that await thinkers of cosmic thought, 
 Those that create the future that is asked, 
 It seemed by thee they could alone be brought. 
 By that deep piercing mind that all the world has taught. 
 
 Some modern states in power of cosmic thinking, 
 In piercing, comprehensive, long protracted thought, 
 Seem to decay and almost to be sinking 
 In mind disease their fat has on them brought, 
 Ease, pleasure, greed and all that w^ealth has wrought. 
 Was it a dream or did we really see 
 The modem world delivered to be taught. 
 Formed and informed by that great soul in thee? 
 For thou, in elemental thinkings caught, 
 Couldst by thy cosmopolitan virtue be 
 The world informing life, her .spirit high and free! 
 
 Wert thou ordained to lead the modern world? 
 'Tis thought, not arms, that hence must rule and reign. 
 Thou hast the mind; the great thou canst engage 
 With intellectual empire few attain. 
 Thy hierarchal leaders held domain 
 All round the globe. States hastened unto thee 
 And bore away the treasures that sustain 
 The generations unto life's travailing plea, 
 
 34 
 
High oracles on thee were written plain 
 And poet-priests saw in the age to be 
 Germanic thought and life around earth like the sea» 
 
 No equal area in all the ^lobe 
 Such numbers feed, clothe, culture and sustain, 
 ilear up a state that power and glory robe 
 And hail the dreams that scepter and domain. 
 Oh what a march of empire and a reign 
 Of wise intelligence and virtuous force 
 Mount on the sight and kindle heart and brain 
 When we behold thy spirits on their course! 
 The hopes and dreams born from earth's travailing pain 
 Seem marching forth, and Life doth them endorse 
 As Science mouldeth thee and thou nature's resource 
 
 But Oh what blind and mad insanity 
 Forever seems to follow gifts and grace 
 And smites with curse this lost humanity 
 Just in the hour triumphant honors place 
 Rich splendor crowns upon her lifted face! 
 Oh why should such a blasting blasting curse 
 Forever smite the man and state and race 
 Whenever life doth into being nurse 
 The transcendental virtues that rebase 
 And build the world and into it unpurse 
 What makes it and themselves a cosmic climbing verse J 
 
 Oh why should pride forever spring from power? 
 And why is strength so kindred unto greed? 
 Why should the gifts another hand doth shower 
 Corrupt the heart till out of it proceed 
 The progeny of hell's infernal breed? 
 Why should the self to such proportions rise 
 That "I" becomes a superhuman breed 
 And transcendental ego that defies 
 The ideals pure the ripe immortals lead? 
 The genius great that blinds all earthly eyes 
 Is mingled with the curse that hurls us from the skies. 
 
 "Those whom the gods destroy they first make mad" 
 And feed them full upon the poison pride, 
 The poison pure that maketh strong and glad 
 And raiseth up upon earth's thrones to ride 
 Until they feel colossi that bestride 
 And shake the earth. Then suddenly the light 
 Of heav'n is blind and soul so god-allied 
 Before the world is struck with such a blight 
 
 35 
 
Mankind is blank, palsied and horrified. 
 Distempered, insane, maddened, monster-sight, 
 Down, down the world they go, down down the gulf of night. 
 
 A such destroying poison was to thee. 
 Thy science was less blessing than a curse. 
 It fed the strength of "I" and "Mine" and "Me" 
 And into thee did open and unpurse 
 Ambitious dream.s that sure destructions nurse. 
 Thou stoodest up among these races mortal 
 And frontest full this towering universe 
 As like a youth of strength and family courtal 
 Who scorns the world and dares her to immerse. 
 The superman stocul in the morning portal 
 And felt he was alone, of all the earth immortal! 
 
 Ambition's eyes with envy always see. 
 Her hungry dreams are famished with desire. 
 Her hopes are huge, her powers from morals free, 
 And action is as swift and fierce as fire 
 What time it bursts in its resistless ire. 
 What didst thou plan? "Our future hence must be 
 Upon the boundless deep. We must acquire 
 The trident and be masters of the sea." 
 And she that did that ancient empire sire 
 And most did feed the envious heart in thee 
 Must swift descend the brine and leave "the ocean free." 
 
 So every son was taught and armed and drilled 
 And fed to leap to thy world ruling schemes. 
 Thy armories and magazines were filled 
 For that great hour that fired thy lawless dreams. 
 All science and resource that overteems 
 In nature's breast and in these human wills 
 Were organized unto their far extremes 
 Till prophecies and dangers, threats and ills 
 All Europe dreamed, and wide earthquaking seams 
 Clove solid earth, explosions tore the hills 
 And blood like water fiowed round earth's loundation sills. 
 
 That navy great that with astounding rise 
 Triumphantly and proudly sailed the deep 
 And often cast its envy blinded eyes 
 On its compeer that calm her course did keep — • 
 Oh who can dream but one desire did leap 
 Within thy heart as thou didst patient wait 
 The promised hour to plunge her to the deep 
 With that implacable, remorseless hate 
 
Ambitions souls to their crowned rivals keep? 
 No other end thy heart could satiate 
 But trample France to death and England overmate. 
 
 Oft, often, oft in insolence of power 
 Thee and thy sons did round the crowded girth. 
 Ye filled as lost archangels in their dower 
 The facades of great structures and in mirth 
 Cast scorn upon the capitals of earth. 
 Inferior states beheld and shrank with fear; 
 Thy equals felt a war soul rise to birth; 
 The prophets saw a lightning riven sphere 
 And Life beheld a blasted ruined dearth, 
 As thy ambitious sons and dreams so dear 
 Would make thyself supreme around the earth and mere. 
 
 When thus it is fate is decreed by fate. 
 The tale is writ in hist'ry o'er and o'er. 
 Such spirits mother forth destroying hate 
 In both themselves and others^ Behind that door 
 Are magazines and just a touch, no lore 
 Can image forth the world destroying strife 
 That plunges all in elemental war. 
 There now thou art. Thy full resources rife 
 Against the fate that pride has to thee bore 
 Art battling now, now for that very life. 
 But nature more than man wields death's destroying knife. 
 
 Sad, sad to see the mad infatuation, 
 The poison rank so fill the heart and mind! 
 "Germany over all supreme in station!" 
 Throngs, masses, all, drunk and infernal wined; 
 Oh what a grief that such a dream should bind 
 A leading state of science recreation 
 And ride thy strength and drive thee undesigned 
 Unto thy curse, strife, loss and mutilation! 
 Oh what a grief that thou shouldst be so blind 
 As drive thyself with mad infatuation 
 Across the modern world to thy own ruination! 
 
 Beyond all dreams thyself and all the world 
 Is plunged in murderous, suicidal strife. 
 Thou who didst first a cosmic flag unfurl 
 With a resistless lightning cleaving knife 
 Now op'nings blasts for choas spirits rife. 
 Black monstrous forms, crimson gigantic crimes 
 And savage births of some unhuman wife 
 Sweep into earth and man with devil rhymes. 
 
 37 
 
Thou who couldst be the leader of all life 
 The blindest in these blind and bleeding times, 
 Far throwing back the world to dragons in their slimed. 
 
 For what, for what is this destruction fell! 
 This wholesale slaughter of the cosmic race! 
 This op'ning wide of all the gates of hell. 
 Insanities inviting to uncase 
 In human hearts and there their courses trace! 
 Destructions full, annihilating strife. 
 Ripe blasphemies and infinite disgrace 
 Are now poured out upon the soul of Life 
 And cripple her, disform her and debase; 
 Thee and thy states, pierced by the lightning knife, 
 Seemed sold as to a curse, to curses over-rife. 
 
 There is a cry out of the heart of nature; 
 On mountain heights and down along the sea. 
 Trees, winds and waves, and tongues of every creature 
 Are moaning out the dirges that must be 
 When hopes are dashed as strife how dasheth thee. 
 Oh what a wail and moan of lamer^tation 
 Are in these storms that o'er the splendors flee 
 When this high hope and promise to creation. 
 Of state and life for which all ages plea. 
 Doth dash herself with blind infatuation 
 On these ambitious schemes to crown an outward station! 
 
 Thought sees a scene of noble congregations, 
 Of thinkers, artists, musicians and the wise, 
 Great socialists, prophets and seers and stations. 
 Faint .shadows of the powers upon the skies 
 And all bowed down in elemental sighs. 
 The offspring of the true and Oversoul 
 Can no more see; their solar searching eyeS 
 Are blinded by the sorows that control; 
 Now faith is dead; a palsy on them lies; 
 They scarce can dream a far millennial goal; 
 The old eternal strife seems all that earth doth pole. 
 
 The world of dreams is passed into eclipse. 
 On heaven's thrones a darkness has domain. 
 But there behold! A rending lightning clips 
 The curtains black and now a sight and strain 
 Burst from on high into the strife profane. 
 Faiths, Hopes and Dreams and Visions of delight 
 To see these blind destructions so insane 
 Are trembling, pale, aghast and dumb and white. 
 
 38 
 
All sing in loud, high languaged passion pain: 
 "The world of hope, the world of truth and right, 
 Has lost her solar path and plunging down the night." 
 
 But Germany, thou art too great to perish! 
 This mighty strife will purify and purge. 
 The remnant left time will maternal cherish 
 And out of death a higher life emerge. 
 A little while and the eternal surge 
 Shall cover all and nature kind will nurse 
 New songs of hope out of this swelling dirge. 
 A Germany free from the blasting curse, 
 Shall then arise and the eternal urge 
 Shall feed thy sons and virtues free unpurse 
 That shall mount up the globe and generations verse. 
 
 Thou art too great, thou art too great to perish; 
 The world in thee beholds another soul. 
 For their own life all states must henceforth cherish 
 Great reason and the socialistic soul 
 Thou gavest them. The very strifes that roll 
 All empires now in blood and death and fears 
 Lift thee and them into a nobler goal. 
 Self-sacrifice, repentance, anguish, tears 
 Are but a tax and civilization's toll. 
 Another soul out of these travailing years 
 In thee and them shall rise and mount diviner spheres. 
 
 Genius of virtue, science, art and power. 
 Spirits that feed and recreate the earth. 
 Ye must transcend the nation as the hour, 
 Must come unto a cosmopolitan birth 
 That knows no state but all within the girth! 
 Interest and strife and time bring nations near; 
 Bounds must dissolve before progress or dearth 
 And states expand unto the visions clear 
 And they shall rule who bring the largest worth. 
 Brute force must pass. Ripe reason rule the sphere. 
 There are no bound'ries hence to all that Life holds dear. 
 
 Genius of virtue, science, art and power. 
 Eternity must henceforth be thy base; 
 Infinity must blossom in the hour 
 As wisdom shines in each celestial face. 
 Henceforth there must be cosmopolitan grace 
 In all ye think or dream or can create. 
 The essential life of all the human race 
 
 39 
 
Is growing one and must thee dominate. 
 Thy genius now the whole world must embrace 
 All nations now the new creators wait. 
 The cosmopolitans hence are rulers as by Fate. 
 
 THE STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER 
 
 No. 1 
 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever! 
 
 Fling her out unto the height! 
 Let her stream unto the heavens 
 Till she burns upon the sight ! 
 Soul if civic life and virtue! 
 
 Let the people see and shout! 
 Shake the nation with the cheering 
 As we fling Old Glory out! 
 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever! 
 
 Spirit pause and really see! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever! 
 
 There's a magic power and plea. 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 There's a vision now to thee. 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever! 
 Is the glory of the free. 
 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 'Tis the banner of the right; 
 There's a virtue in her bosom 
 
 That to free men feeds delight. 
 There's a vision and a glory 
 
 Ever bursting on our sight, 
 A splendor, march and chorus 
 As the morning up the height. 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 
 When we come unto the years! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 
 When we enter life's careers! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 
 When our eyes are purged by tears! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever 
 When we triumph on the spheres. 
 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 
 As a higher hope to time, 
 A prophecy of ages high 
 
 And all virtue pure and prime! 
 
 40 
 
With the world she has heen growing 
 
 And inspiring all to climb, 
 Let her mount and crown the station 
 Like a hope of life sublime! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever 
 As the constellations bright! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever 
 
 As the morning on the night! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever 
 
 As the splendor on the height! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 Oh forever on our sight! 
 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever 
 There's a prophecy and hope. 
 See! A broad inviting pathway 
 
 Up the future's noble slope. 
 Up, up the new created world 
 
 Now a Virtue lifteth high, 
 Swings the banner of the nation 
 As a glory on the sky. 
 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever 
 
 On the present dark and dun! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever 
 On the splendor of the sun! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 She has always always won! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever 
 While all time and tide shall run! 
 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever! 
 
 Hear that glorious, glorious sound! 
 The singing now is shaking earth, 
 
 The citizen is found. 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever 
 
 Now are going down the years. 
 Old Glory and young Liberty 
 Are mounting up the spheres. 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 
 Oh forever just and right! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever 
 
 Our defense and hope and might! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever 
 
 Glory, passion and delight! 
 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 
 Oh forever on the height! 
 
 41 
 
ARISE AND FIGHT 
 
 Awake! Awake! Awake! 
 *Tis a trumpet sound to the nation's need 
 
 That doth on us break 
 As a voice that calls from the hearts that bleed. 
 'Tis Liberty, our divinegt soul, 
 Time's supremest hope and man's rolar goal 
 That upon the hour doth her heart unroLL 
 
 Awake I Awake ! Awake ! 
 The Queen of the isles in her passion white 
 
 Doth upon us shake 
 An appeal to life and the sons if might. 
 'Tis the living soul with a piercing sound; 
 Be the tissues time has upon us bound 
 From the heart and eyes with a wrench unwound! 
 
 "Arise! Arise! Arise! 
 Now ye free born race, let a lightning sword 
 
 Sweep the earth and skies 
 Of the mine and mart and the gains adored. 
 Let the soul in soul hear the clarion sound! 
 As ye heard before, from the sordid ground 
 Now leap into life with a mighty bound," 
 
 "Arise! Arise! Arise! 
 Let the greatest man in ye ever born 
 
 Come before my eyes 
 In the naked strength ye have ever worn. 
 See! The heav'ns and earth are in gathering storm; 
 Let the thunder, lightning and fears that swarm 
 But thy girdle bind and thy passions warm!" 
 
 "Behold ! Behold ! Behold ! 
 All the dogs of war that have bellowed long 
 
 And been fed most bold 
 Have broken the leash in their hungers strong. 
 They are leaping forth; they are tongued for thee; 
 They are only held by the circling sea; 
 Ye, the first born free, shall they feast on ye?" 
 
 "Behold! Behold! Behold! 
 See the war lords' dreams. On the world they ride 
 
 And their brute strength rolled 
 On your island Queen who is Life's best bride. 
 'Tis my own pure soul or a tyrant's rule, 
 'Tis a free man's throne or a slave's foot stool. 
 That this unyoked race shall the future school,"' 
 
 42 
 
"To arms! To arms! To arms! 
 I can see the flash of the passions white 
 
 That scorns the alarms 
 In a rising shout of supreme delight- 
 Ye are still the race of my fondest dreams, 
 Sons, daughters and sires in whose being streams 
 My spirit of life and my hopes and schemes." 
 
 "To arms! To arms! To arms! 
 'Tis a mighty strife. It was tax all force 
 
 And will break all charms 
 But the world's free soul and her va.5t iv.souvce. 
 See! Peace looks around. There's no other hope. 
 None but ye dare mount up the armored slope; 
 None but ye safe stand on the summit's cope." 
 
 "March on! March on! March on! 
 Now the die is cast; now the strife begun, 
 
 And the free man's life 
 Must again be shed and in torrents run. 
 But cheap is the loss to the glorious prize 
 For the race dies out when the free man dies 
 And the world is lost when the tyrants rise." 
 
 "March on! March on! March on! 
 Ye are on the field. Ye are in the fight 
 
 And the old world shakes 
 With the mighty strife of the elements white- 
 Now, Life stands aghast at the fearful sports 
 As destructions rain from artillery forts 
 And staggering Death holds varnival courts." 
 
 "Fight on! Fight on! Fight on! 
 To the finish go! 'Tis a final war. 
 
 It is life or death 
 For the free or slave and the world so sore. 
 Ye are driven back. Ye are driving forth. 
 Drive on, drive on through the night so swarth 
 Like the girded strength of the granite north/* 
 
 "Fight on! Fight on! Fight on! 
 From my soul I bleed but I cannot shrink 
 
 From the awful course 
 To a still more worse when I pause and think. 
 For defense of self bind thy passion tight! 
 For the future age be thy elements white! 
 But for Liberty, to the last ditch fight!" 
 
 43 
 
NEUTRALITY 
 
 'Tis a pregnant time. Earth is in travailing pain. 
 Great agonies and dread convulsions rife 
 Tear through the frame with vast gigantic strain. 
 The long proclaimed, dark destined hour of strife 
 Has settled down upon the soul of Life. 
 A hemisphere, the nations, bond and free 
 Make insurrection. State, man and child and wife 
 Are ruthless slain by hosts that spurn all plea 
 And War insane wields her insanest knife. 
 Behold that scene! Here proclamations be: 
 "These citizens and states shall just sit still and see." 
 
 At such a time, fate burdened burdened time. 
 When Britain in a final struggle locks 
 With a machine gigantic and sublime. 
 Dynamical and founded on the rocks. 
 At such a time when none but she dare blocks 
 The progress of war's latest incarnation 
 That rages on and cataclysmic shocks 
 Sends through mankind and threatens civilization. 
 At such a time when War her strength unlocks 
 In number, science, wealth, and fierce elation 
 As shakes the mighty globe as never since creation, 
 
 At such a time when Britain comes once more 
 To bear the brunt and battles of the free. 
 To give herself as in the days of yore, 
 A sacrifice that Europe yet may be 
 The heritage all free men dream to see. 
 At such a time when mankind's highest plan 
 She bears aloft and strikes with Liberty, 
 With that high Soul that all the ages van. 
 Another oath to all eternity. 
 
 And blows a blast that through the earth has ran 
 That calls to deadly strife her every free born clan. 
 
 Is this the time that these United States 
 Should sit and gloat and gloat and gloat upon the mart. 
 Engaging in these endless keen debates 
 Of empires new that open up for bart 
 And feed but death unto her selfish heart? 
 Is this the time that these United States 
 Should give all life and strength unto the art 
 Of wealth, and hail as most propitious fates 
 The awful wars that swing such gates apart? 
 Yet here she sits and calmly contemplates, 
 Not, not the glorious cause, the mart that for her waits. 
 
 44 
 
Is this the time that these United States 
 That free men first brought to a glorious birth, 
 And gave her young with joys and loves and hates 
 Unto a course that feeds with strength and mirth 
 All hope and faith that fills the rounded earth? 
 I,s this the time that these United States 
 That late consigned with deadly strife and dearth 
 Liberticides and tyrants to their fates, 
 To sit and see great Freedom's globe of worth 
 Convulsed and torn, and turn their long debates 
 Not, not on Liberty but on the wealth that waits? 
 
 Why should this neutral edict smother down 
 The heaven-kindled, sacred altar fire. 
 The flame divine that doth with glory crown 
 All souls that feel and feed the high desire? 
 Why should this proclamation so require 
 This silence, until deaf and dumb and blind 
 This Republic that Hope did sight and sire 
 Seems to be dead to its own higher kind? 
 Why should one side fling out their frenzied ire 
 And our own kin must on her armor bind, 
 Save mankind's highest hopes and her high course maligned? 
 
 To hell, to hell, a thousand times to hell 
 W^ith neutral laws that muzzle up the free, 
 All selfish fear, all philanthropic spell 
 And coward peace that Liberty woud see 
 Forever tramped before the strifes that be! 
 To hell, to hell, a thousand times to hell 
 Hurl every masquerading prayer and plea 
 Disloyal unto Liberty and fell 
 To all mankind with cursed tyranny! 
 Life'.s highest hopes are now in shot and shell; 
 The common dung like souls in sordid courses dwell. 
 
 Oh let us hear some libertarian plea 
 Of white, contagious, elemental fire! 
 Let passion songs and flaming measures free 
 The silence fill that neutral laws require! 
 Oh pour the ,sound with infinite inspire 
 Upon the greed and gold besotten soul 
 Until they feel the all consuming ire 
 And Liberty see as our human goal! 
 Pour out the strain! Oh lift it high and higher! 
 O'er land and sea the ancient numbers roll! 
 'Tis Liberty alone that can the planet pole- 
 
 45 
 
Far more than wealth or home or child or wife 
 A man should side and line up with the free. 
 There's something lost, the essence of all life, 
 If freedom's wars that gem man's history 
 Have never found the mightier soul is thee. 
 Thou art not man, a dung begotten thing, 
 Mere scab on life, disease on land and sea, 
 Pollution to the ages that we sing 
 If to this strife thou unresponsive be, 
 If passion white does not within thee spring, 
 If thou leave Liberty unto the marts to cling. 
 
 'Tis wisdom wise that we should neutral be; 
 But should we not pour out with thunder sound, 
 That at the base and if the need we see 
 Forever more this nation will be found 
 With Liberty to gird her round and round? 
 Who fights for her all such we underbase; 
 The streams of life that flow far underground 
 Will strengthen them with sympathies that lace 
 The passions tight in ever forward bound; 
 And if the free cannot maintain their place. 
 Shot like a thunderbolt this nation forth will race. 
 
 'Tis only they who fellowship the strife 
 Dare share the fame of the immortal dead. 
 A full s.elf-sacrifical glow in life 
 Is just the same as that in battle shed. 
 One glory bright eternal crowns each head. 
 Where e'er man's lot, whatever he may be, 
 Against all odds, with all unto him wed, 
 With hope and faith, self sacrifice and plea, 
 Unmindful of the portion to him fed. 
 Scorning the neutral courses soul should flee. 
 With Liberty line up and fellowship the free! 
 
 Awake, awake! Ye free born breed arise! 
 Neutral without, but inward ever be 
 Life',s free free born that still can sacrifice 
 And share the strifes deep calling unto thee! 
 Stand up! Stand up! Be wise but be more free! 
 Freedom alone life's larger doors can ope! 
 What now we are, whatever great we see. 
 Is but the fruit of Freedom's deadly cope. 
 Feed thou the flame! Pledge life to Liberty! 
 Line with the cause! Stand up on plain and slope! 
 Fight, fight for Liberty and give the future hope! 
 
 46 
 
FACING IT 
 A Trench Song. 
 
 Both life and death are here; 
 
 Both hang as by a hair; 
 Each moment Death can shear 
 
 From life so full and fair; 
 But honor still we prize 
 
 And honor death defies. 
 Far better here than there 
 
 Though hard the lot we bear, 
 For here in duty's place 
 
 We can stand up erect 
 
 And Life and Death both face. 
 
 Within the mind and heart 
 
 Are thoughts and passions white. 
 
 From these Immortals start 
 And front us in their might. 
 
 What coward-hosts must shrink 
 When they but stop to think, 
 
 For from their souls arise 
 Condemning lightning eyes? 
 
 We have purged off disgrace 
 And here can stand erect 
 And our own spirits face. 
 
 The Germans are a breed, 
 
 Strong, fierce, remorseless, wise; 
 
 They would the planet lead. 
 By trampling freedom rise; 
 
 Their guns with science lore 
 Fierce as the lightnings pour; 
 
 Only the free may dare 
 Such elements so bare, 
 
 But we are Britain's race 
 And still can stand erect 
 And front them to the face. 
 
 There is the soldier breed, 
 
 Great memory holds them dear; 
 
 To every high born creed 
 They are forever near. 
 
 Who fronts them unafraid 
 is of their metal made, 
 
 47 
 
Who shrink and cringe and fly 
 Disgrace doth on him lie. 
 
 Time's every soldier race, 
 We can stand up erect 
 And look them in the face. 
 
 Great Britain's empire soul, 
 
 Majest-c and sublime. 
 The best we see to pole 
 
 The world and life and time, 
 Sq.- scans the vast round globe, 
 
 Doth all souls pierce and probe. 
 Shall humans yet be free? 
 
 Who answers to her plea? 
 Behold her eyes and grace! 
 
 We can stand up erect 
 
 And look her in -the face. 
 
 Upon those solemn skies 
 
 Are solemn judgment thrones. 
 
 All thoughtful, strong and wise 
 God's final judgment owns. 
 
 We are no court of saints ; 
 Sense and temptation taints; 
 
 Great passions drive us strong; 
 We feel the stain of wrong; 
 
 But dying for the race 
 We can stand up ereci 
 And look God in the face, 
 
 'Tis a tremendous time. 
 
 All elements are bare. 
 The strong are in their prime. 
 
 The weak are in despair. 
 The world, nations and man 
 
 The lightnings test and scan^ 
 Our duty is to fight 
 
 For Liberty and Right. 
 Since we can fill the place 
 
 We can stand up erect 
 
 And all the cosmos face. 
 
 4g 
 
WASHINGTON 
 
 1732-1797 
 
 High honored and immortal spirit pure! 
 We love tO; stand and contemplate thy soul; 
 For such a man the furnaces endure 
 And such a dream a nation great can pole 
 What stormy times or evolutions roll. 
 Wert thou not one the mighty mother lent 
 When resurrected freedom shook the whole 
 Created frame and democracy was sent 
 Into the world? To wrest Life's high control 
 From tyranny thou wert chosen, formed and bent 
 And led the fierce rebellions old ancient empires rent. 
 
 Thou wert a man. Old Nature stamped thee great 
 And wrote it on thy course and countenance. 
 Life needed men. There was the galling weight 
 Of tyrants, a continent hung in suspense. 
 And generations were slaves or freemen hence. 
 No wonder Liberty took hold on thee 
 And armed thee strong for her young hope's defense. 
 Before the world, the sword they made thy plea. 
 Small was the sphere, the issues most immense. 
 The struggle won, and thou must ever be 
 An ideal patriot and freeman of the free. 
 
 Thou hast outsoared the limits of thy kind. 
 Thrice purged above the blemishes of crime 
 Thou art enthroned, replenished and divined 
 With virtues and immortal passions prinie. 
 Exalted where we mortals cannot climb. 
 There is a mythologic largeness vast 
 Upon thy spirit, and atmospheres sublime 
 That lifteth soul from the repressive past. 
 We cannot dream thee back in struggling time 
 And with our great thou canst no more be classed. 
 The high immortal peers are through thy spirit glassed. 
 
 To just a few is given the glorious right, 
 To be revered, lifted and throned divine. 
 Purged and renewed of every mortal blight 
 And clothed with grace that like the sun doth shine; 
 To just a few, time, place and virtue line 
 That nations choose and throne as their ideal. 
 And Life delights to fill them as a shrine 
 And heaven stamps on them her highest seal; 
 
 49 
 
To just a few the Fates are so benign 
 As gods they rise, the best of life reveal 
 And still grow more divine as on the ages wheel. 
 
 And such wert thou. The nation at her birth 
 With that instinct that never knows untruth 
 Chose thee the type of all she dreamed of worth 
 Or she could wish to guide her growing youth. 
 Though she w^as young, strong, native and uncouth. 
 And we have marched to undreamed civilizations. 
 Been torn by strife and taught by bitter ruth 
 Thou still doth guide the Union's aspirations. 
 The world outgrows all but eternal truth. 
 Our dreams, inventions, powers and wealth and stations 
 Stand still and think and bow to thy soul's dominations. 
 
 In other days the heroes of mankind 
 Were throned and pictured on the midnight skies. 
 That thus exploit and character might bind 
 The generations unto a larger prize. 
 As their ideal was sketched before the eyes 
 On such gigantic scales as did command 
 The larger soul within them to arise. 
 So thou are spread on this Republic grand, 
 A great ideal no mortal dare despise 
 For widening hosts by thee are taught to stand, 
 Feel fire within the heart and strength in each right hand. 
 
 We see thee walking up and down the nation. 
 The great presiding genius of all life. 
 Moulding the form of each new generation. 
 Still moulding men out of destroying strife. 
 Great national type with elements as rife 
 As is our growth to cosmopolitan scope. 
 Oft time is cut as by a lightning knife 
 And face to face we meet thee up the slope. 
 Life's passions rise as to the soldier's fife; 
 New girded, armed and kindled with new hope 
 Thy spirit in us burns to meet the foes that cope. 
 
 Above and throned upon this mighty nation, 
 That grew from it and feeds it life's inspire. 
 There is a gath'ring, glorious congregation. 
 Immortals that this mortal sphere doth sire. 
 All Genius, Valor, Honor and Strength and Fire 
 Are gathered there and feed the lofty mind, 
 The music, dreams and memories of desire. 
 Thou standest there amid thy kindred-kind, 
 
 50 
 
-As thou stoodst here amid the strife and ire, 
 A spirit tall whose character doth bind 
 The souls of largest men these growing states can find. 
 
 And yet we build our towering monuments 
 Marble and bronze unto the azure skies, 
 Till they become formality and offense 
 Unto the soul and blindness to the eyes> 
 But let it pass. Spirit to Spirit cries; 
 Thou art enthroned within the civic heart; 
 Thy image on imagination flies 
 Till sense and strife and selfishness depart 
 And soul within doth unto thee arise. 
 Life sees the lines of her prophetic chart 
 In splendor bursting forth and blinding sense and mart. 
 
 OLD GLORY'S ULORY 
 
 Old Glory high, forever wave! 
 
 Spread, s_pread her dominations! 
 Inspire with life the powers that save 
 
 And bring the new creations! 
 O'er Peace, a summer queen that reigns. 
 
 She is the best defender! 
 Vast peaceful trains with joyful strains 
 Bid ever more attend her! 
 
 Oh lift her up and fling her out! 
 
 She is the hope of ages! 
 Time's endless wars are on the rout, 
 
 The future peace engages. 
 Cease, cease old war as life's great end! 
 
 Swing out another story! 
 To float o'er Peace, bid her increase^ 
 Is most Old Glory's glory. 
 
 But if disgrace or tyrants rise. 
 
 Throw her to heaven arching! 
 This banner like a trumpet cries: 
 "Arise for wal-ward marching!'^ 
 From city, fol*cst, mart and mine. 
 
 From mountain, plain and oceail 
 Thy sons and sires with frenzy fine 
 Come rushing with devotion. 
 Oh lift her up and fling her out! 
 
 Defenders will assemble! 
 They come with loud triumphant Shout, 
 
 51 
 
oppressors fear and tremble. 
 Look up on high! Behold and scan 
 
 Our hope, defense and story! 
 To call the soldier up in man 
 
 Is most Old Glory's glory. 
 
 Upon the fiercest fighting front' 
 
 Are clashing earthquake passions. 
 See! Men rush to to bear the brunt 
 
 With hero fire and fashions. 
 Far to the fore, the very first 
 
 Old Glory on is leading; 
 The hour is in her soul immersed. 
 Her life she all is feeding. 
 
 Oh lift her up and swing her out! 
 
 The tempest she can battle. 
 She scorns disgrace and dares to bout 
 
 The tyrant, thrall and chattle. 
 "Oh give me death or liberty!" 
 
 Has ever been her story! 
 To fight the tyrants for the free 
 Is most Old Glory's glory. 
 
 And when the fighters home are come 
 
 All scarred and worn and cripple. 
 Some shout aloud, some stand as dumb, 
 
 Down some the tears will ripple. 
 For their Old Glory lifted high. 
 
 Shot, sholled and stained and tattered, 
 More than the sun adorns the sky 
 Thoug'h like the soldiers shattered. 
 Oh lift her up and fling her out! 
 
 She is the freeman's banner 
 The round earth join us in our shout. 
 
 High heaven loves to fan her. 
 Around her ring! Her praise sing! 
 
 Embalm her fame in story! 
 The stains and scars that round her cling 
 Is most Old Glory's glory. 
 
 Old Glory high, forever wave! 
 
 Spread, spread her dominations! 
 Inspire with life the powers that save 
 
 And bring the new creations? 
 O'er Peace, a summer queen that reigns 
 
 She is the best defender! 
 Vast peaceful trains with joyful strains 
 
 Bid ever more attend her! 
 
 52 
 
Oh lift her up and lling her outl 
 
 She is the hope of ages! 
 Time's endless wars are on the rout, 
 
 The future peace engages. 
 Cease, cease old war as life's great end! 
 
 Swing out another story! 
 To float o'er Peace, bid her increase. 
 
 Is most Old Glory's glory. 
 
 OLD GLORY 
 
 Behold! Behold! The fathers there 
 
 Shake out another banner 
 The elder nations start and stare 
 And scorn and cursing scan her. 
 But Liberty, the chosen Queen 
 
 Of this new world did plan her. 
 And new word Spirits swift and keen 
 With vital breath did fan her. 
 Old Glory is a living thing; 
 The life of life is flowing 
 Within the bosom that we fling 
 
 Unto the winds so blowing- 
 The Mother, sons and daughters sing 
 And march with crimson glowing. 
 
 Up, up the infant's rugged years 
 
 This banner led the nation; 
 Wise moulding these chaotic spheres 
 
 Unto a new creation. 
 Vast, vast resources east and west, 
 
 New peoples, times and stations, 
 Old Glory led us far abreast 
 And marched for dominations. 
 Old Glory is a living thing, 
 
 A soul contagious fire. 
 Upon the skies with eagle wing. 
 
 Inspiring son and sire. 
 The ages marching as they sing 
 Unto a nobler lyre 
 
 Who up the evolution climbs 
 With man and nature clashes. 
 
 This young Republic faced the times 
 And dared the sword that flashes. 
 
Thoii, thou the foremost in the fray 
 
 Wert torn with mighty gashes; 
 But shot nor shell nor sword could stay 
 Thy fierce and forward dashes. 
 Old Glory is a living thing; 
 
 Peace, peace her breast engages; 
 But if the tyrants on us spring 
 
 The ancient spirit rages 
 And just a call from her would bring 
 The soldier of the ages. 
 
 Ail round the vast and girdled globe 
 
 Old Glory is a glory. 
 All thrones and empires she could robe 
 
 And lend them strain and story. 
 No majesties and grandeurs prime 
 
 Or splendors high and hoary 
 To Liberty seems more sublime 
 Than this Republic's glory. 
 Old Glory is a living thing; 
 
 Life in her breast is flowing; 
 "Who can her rhyme mounts to his prime 
 
 With crimson joy and glowing. 
 Oh let her swing! Her praises sing! 
 The world grows with her growing. 
 
 By City, forest, Stream and mead, 
 
 -On mountain, plain and ocean, 
 To tower and mast, Oh nail her fast 
 
 And stir the winds in motion! 
 All citizen and soldier lines 
 
 With music of devotion 
 Shall lift her up and pledge the wines 
 Of life's divinest potion. 
 
 Old Glory ig a living thing; 
 
 Old Earth her life is feeding; 
 The World-Soul shakes her with a fling: 
 
 "Old Glory go on breeding! 
 Who with thy soul can mount and sing,, 
 For these the world is pleading." 
 
FOURTH OF JULY SONG 
 
 "Awake!" a spirit cried: "Awake! 
 
 Oh poet, slumber fling! 
 The civic harp in silence break 
 
 And from her spirt bring 
 A song with passion pure and white, 
 
 A lyric that shall ring 
 To feed the nation wise delight. 
 
 Inspiring all to sing!" 
 
 "Arise, Oh Arise! 'Tis the Fourth of July! 
 A glorious dawn is on earth and the sky. 
 The morning inviteth and trumpeters sound 
 The bugling blast that is echoing round." 
 
 "Today is the day when the nation was born. 
 Let life and her sons with a gladness be torn! 
 Republican State! True Democracy great! 
 With liberty, life and all passions elate. 
 We rise and we march and thy altars we ring. 
 Allegiance and honor and praises we sing!" 
 
 "Trump, trump it out! 'Tis the Fourth of July, 
 The day of the year to be sacred and high; 
 To pause and to think and to see and to feel 
 The nation, its life and its hopes and ideal." 
 
 "Trump, trump it out! Sea, mountain and skies 
 The echoes are flinging, the nation doth rise. 
 In the hemisphere young is a passion and pulse, 
 A marching and music and dreams that convulse." 
 
 "Trump, trump it again to the ends of the earth. 
 Giving selfishness death and the citizen birth! 
 Bring, bring them all up to the top of the state 
 And feed them the soul of the nation so great!" 
 
 "Today is the day when the nation was born. 
 Let Life and her sons with a gladness be torn! 
 Republican State! True Democracy great! 
 With Liberty, life and all passion elate, 
 We rise and we march and thy altars we ring. 
 Allegiance and honor and praises we sing." 
 
 "Spread, spread out the struggle, the struggle to be 
 The chainless, the brandless, the fearless and free; 
 Life's royal and straight, law's loyal and strong, 
 Still singing the world her immortalest song." 
 
 55 
 
"The fathers who fathered and founded the state,. 
 The mothers who mothered and nourished it great, 
 Behold them, behold! In colonial guise 
 They're marching right into the morning's bright eyes- 
 
 "The sons and the daughters of earlier years 
 With brawniest strength defied nature and fears. 
 The chopper and plowman and builder abreast 
 Are marching before us with passions of zest." 
 
 "Look, look! Who are these! The immortals most great 
 Have descended to earth for our honors of state. 
 'Tis Washington, Franklin, tall Lincoln and Grant 
 And all the immortals we honor and chant." 
 
 "Look, look! Who are these? There are Fifty and One, 
 The angels of morn round a Soul like the sun. 
 All the Sisterhood full and the Queen of the throng 
 In majesty, splendor and marching and song." 
 
 "Look, look! What is this? It is Liberty's train, 
 Truth, honor and right and the powers that domain. 
 Intelligence, virtue, religion and law 
 And all the great worlds that forever they draw." 
 
 "Look, look! Who is this? 'Tis the vision divine. 
 So eclipsing the sun and so bulging our eyne! 
 It is Liberty, Queen of the earth and the sky 
 Now marching and sealing 'The Fourth of July.' " 
 
 "Today is the day when the nation was born. 
 Let Life and her sons with a gladness be torn! 
 Republican State! True Democracy great! 
 With Liberty, life and all passions elate. 
 We rise and we march and thy altars we ring. 
 Allegiance and honor and praises we sing." 
 
 "Remember the time and remember the deed 
 
 That created the state and hemisphere freed! 
 
 They were nature's own stuff and all kings in their power 
 
 Went down before men with a royaler dower." 
 
 "Remember the day and remember the right 
 It gives to the soul like the morning to night! 
 And in thee the spirit of freedom arise, 
 Looking forth on the state with the wisest of eyes!" 
 
 56 
 
"Remember the gift and remember the price 
 The ages have paid for a free paradise! 
 How rivers of blood and vast millions of free 
 Have been bled for the state and is native to thee!" 
 
 "Remember the honor and glory and grace 
 On Liberty's brow and around her free race! 
 The finest of bread and the wine that we drink 
 
 Are thoughts of the free the free only can think." 
 
 " 'Tis the Fourth of July! 'Tis the Fourth of July! 
 The cannon are sounding to earth, sea and sky; 
 The spirits and passions and powers of the free 
 Have risen like waves on the wind sweeping sea," 
 
 "Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam is now riding in pride 
 Or standing and viewing the nation so wide. 
 He is tall and erect, cheerful, chesty and strong 
 And smiles as he hears the full national song." 
 
 "See yonder the Eagle is soaring in might, 
 In majesty robed and resplendent with light; 
 Both giving and taking the fervors of fire, 
 Surveying all state with the fondest desire!" 
 
 "Old Glory, Old Glory the multitudes lead; 
 The man within man is now found and full freed, 
 She fronteth the future with passion and power, 
 A hope to the state like the sun on his tower' 
 
 "North, East, South and West with musicians now march, 
 With playing and~ singing shake pillar and arch; 
 The soul is new born, the true citizen found, 
 The Fourth of July to the state has him bound." 
 
 "Today is the day when the nation was born. . 
 Let Life and her sons with a gladness be torn! 
 Republican State ! True Democracy great ! 
 With liberty, life and all passions elate, 
 We rise and we march and thy altars we ring, 
 Allegiance and honor and praises we sing." 
 
 57 
 
THE CURSE 
 
 What time I traveled on the world's highway 
 With passion white and most exalted thought, 
 Beholding ages and civilizations stray 
 Before mine eyes, my spirit fierce was caught 
 And held by power and infinitely wrought; 
 For there below, in their most perfect form, 
 With all their wealth, the greatest nations brought, 
 The evolutions of highest cosmic norm, 
 The civilization that all the ages sought. 
 Were plunged in strife, and all the powers of storm 
 Swept down on lightning wings to feed the passions warm. 
 
 When at the scene in sorrow and amaze. 
 With bulging eyes and shadowed by dark fear 
 I strained and strained to watch the deadly plays 
 My soul was shook as tempests shake the meer. 
 But when at length my spirit I could steer 
 I saw it like an infinite insanity 
 Bestride the world and driving on the sphere; 
 And when again the stark, blind, mad profanity 
 Its heart revealed to reason calm and clear, 
 A vision rose; the Spirit of humanity 
 Came up upon the scene to view the deadly vanity. 
 
 Then sudden, that Spirit of humanity 
 With passion of an infinitest height 
 Rose to her full, full, full divinest sanity 
 That exercised all corresponding right. 
 A voice of clear, omnipotential might. 
 More keen and quick than lightnings ever woke 
 Prilled heav'n and earth, and held all in despite 
 Of all the hells that in and round them broke. 
 Amazed and still and list'ning in their fright, 
 Time's primest Soul to all earth passions spoke 
 And on the mui-d'ring strife did curse immense invoke, 
 
 "Oh World and Life and Time! Contending Nations, 
 And all ye neutral yet unneutral States! 
 All Hierarchs of vain and worthy stations! 
 All Masses wide that bear life's mountain weights 
 And Nature great that all so dominates! 
 Oh hark and hear! Cease, cease infernal strife! 
 The soul in soul lost in its selfish hates 
 Mount up again unto the throne of life! 
 Hark ye and hear as Reason now relates 
 The curse of truth, sharp as a Roman's knife 
 And drives it to the hilt with all her passions rife." 
 
 58 
 
*'Look on yourselves! Your beings contemplate! 
 Your natures now fix 'neath a microscope! 
 Let living soul in reason's best estate 
 With something of the golden dreams of hope 
 Her lightning eyes on your own spirits ope! 
 Stand up in what ye most essential are! 
 Purge out, purge out all adventitious dope 
 And your own souls to your own sight unbar! 
 Abhor the lie ! No longer blindly grope ! 
 When man with truth can weigh and pass at par " 
 He's young and fresh and strong as is the morning star." 
 
 "Are ye not men or is this glorious form 
 A masquerade, disguise and blind attire 
 Upon the things that from the jungle swarm 
 And clothe themselves as social codes require. 
 Thus mocking dreams the heavens rich inspire? 
 Are ye not men or is this godlike frame 
 The habitation, instrument and power 
 Of" some dehumanized and beastly flame 
 Forever fierce with passions that devour? 
 Are ye not men? Is this erected tower 
 A heaven selected soul or monster of the hour?" 
 
 "Are ye not minds? Have ye not power to think? 
 Did ye not share life's transcendental gift? 
 Is not this power thy glory, meat and drink 
 And do great thoughts your spirits never lift? 
 Does mental light the darkness never rift 
 And bear thee through into the living dreams 
 The thinkers shape is this chaotic shift? 
 Does Reason and her high prophetic schemes 
 Not work in ye and does this change and drift 
 The cosmos blind? Upon you thinking gleams, 
 Such grace cannot deceive. Thought in your being teems. 
 
 "Then stand and pause and contemplate this scene! 
 Here is old Europe and all her tangled races; 
 See how black storms the azure heavens screen. 
 How earthquake throes the granite base displaces. 
 How passion of volcanic hate uncases, 
 How all the thrones, masses and states and powers, 
 How laws, religions, literatures and graces. 
 How humans great and all their cosmic dowers, 
 How all between the thrones and mountain bases 
 Is plunged in strife, intenser with the hours. 
 Dehumanized to beasts, each famined, each devours?" 
 
 59 
 
"Behold it! Is it not insanity, 
 Worse than the dreams that even madness tell, 
 Distempers that dehumanize humanity. 
 Them driving on to such destructions fell 
 As sing to earth a wild funereal knell 
 On all man's hopes? Oh is it not a curse 
 Of black annihilation and a hell 
 Of blight on all the travailing ages nurse? 
 No heav'n born imprecations could expel 
 More blasting rain than this that does unpurse, 
 Full sevenfold vials of v^rath and growing worse and worse." 
 
 "Behold yon mangled fields and chocking trenches, 
 Mangled and chocked and horrible with dead, 
 A new plowed land that crimson virtue drenches. 
 With fragments strewn, entrails, leg, arm and head 
 And ghastly forms hacked till the life has fled ! 
 Still o'er it sweeps a lightning blasting fire, 
 Above explode great canisters of lead, 
 And down is rained annihilating ire; 
 It is the damnedest ever done or said, 
 A demon's dream when wines infernal sire 
 The dreams from which they shrink, too dreadful for desire!" 
 
 "There are two lines, the best earth ever bred. 
 Life's noblest types, pure product and delight. 
 With virtuous heart and glory on the head, 
 The very heav'ns doth welcome and invite 
 Their presence to the thrones upon the height. 
 Then is a blast of fiercest indignation. 
 Then is a moment's blindness on the sight, 
 Then is a groan of travailing lost creation. 
 Then silence on the science powers that smite; 
 And all for what? Oh what a consummation 
 To Life and Love and Truth an i this great civilization? 
 
 "Oh what a mad destruction fierce and fell 
 On all of time's and life's great institutions, 
 A blast of fire as from the mouth of hell 
 Upon the priceless cosmic evolutioijs! 
 What reasonless, fanatic executions 
 On education, industry and state 
 And all that base and offer man solutions 
 From these eternal strifes that ever wait 
 To sunder man and tramp in vile pollutions! 
 Oh what a loss! Oh what a guilt and weight 
 Upon the world and life beneath this murd'rous hate!" 
 
 60 
 
"How infinite this desecrates the man! 
 These highest hopes that earth did ever nurse, 
 So rich endowed unto a cosmic plan 
 And marched unto a cosmopolitan verse, 
 And then brought up before a blasting curse, 
 And cheaper than the breeds of savage tongue, 
 And blinder than the night that doth immerse, 
 And ruthless as old Nature ever flung. 
 And quicker than the lightning can unpurse, 
 And worthless as the weeds around them sprung 
 The royal race of man is just a new earth dung." 
 
 "Reason! Reason! Thou hope of all mankind! 
 Thou spirit of these climbing civilizations. 
 That leads the world from beasts and prisons blind 
 Up, up the steeps of glorious exaltations! 
 Thou parent of the dreamed-of recreations 
 When all earth tribes and languages and shores 
 Shall mount above to life's rich consummations 
 And leave behind their blind infernal wars! 
 Kin-soul to those that reign on heaven's stations 
 Now thou are tramped 'neath earth's most bloody gores, 
 Tramped and tramped and tramped on these rank slaughtered floors 
 
 "Worse, worse, far worse than all the loss of man 
 Is this blank loss out of the world's great heart. 
 The high ideals of sacred Power and Plan 
 That guides the world with his celestial chart! 
 See how the blind and insane lightnings dart 
 Into the soul and there forever smite 
 'The Fatherhood of God,' and deadly bart 
 As if to it a more intenser spite 
 A wrath that slays 'The Brotherhood of Man!' 
 Who can believe in God, truth, love and right 
 When these fierce hosts of hell so slaughter in our sight!" 
 
 "Then hark ye hierarchial Souls of crime! 
 Can it be strange these desecrations nurse 
 Life's sorrows sore unto a height sublime, 
 And passion from its anger should unpurse 
 An utt'rance large and loaded with a curse? 
 On these blind powers that doth their power abuse, 
 On these great States that greed and hate immerse, 
 On these proud souls that light and truth refuse. 
 Now let me fling a far resounding verse, 
 That they will scorn and still destruction choose, 
 That they will instant slay but life should never lose." 
 
 61 
 
"Grermany, stand forth! 'What! So instant here! 
 tJnto the judgment leapest thou so keen. 
 The elements defying without fear! 
 Thou art a noble shape; this old terrene 
 Throughout the girth a better never seen; 
 Thou art a scientific cosmic breed; 
 Wealth, knowledge, power and social virtues green 
 Must be the dope that doth sustain and feed; 
 Resourceful, wise, erect and swift and lean, 
 A, spirit called vast human hosts to lead 
 But lost, blind lost an hour in earth's contagious greed." 
 
 "Draw up thyself, for mightier far than thou 
 Humanity an hour on thee presidest. 
 Upon thy high expansive cosmic brow 
 Doth sit the curse thou from thy spirit hidest. 
 A curse, world blasting curse, in thee abidest 
 At infinite diameters and strife 
 To that high grace the cosmic soul confidest 
 Unto thy care to recreate all life. 
 A greed of power, a selfishness the widest, 
 And vast ambition whom thou didst wed as wife 
 Have torn thee on a course with tangled curses rife!" 
 
 "Thou are the cause, the first clear primal cause 
 Of this mad strife that so destroys the earth. 
 Ambition's poison did slay the sacred awes 
 That gives to life her most supremest worth, 
 And unto power, prosperity and mirth 
 Did sow the dreams of high exalted station. 
 Since greed and power brings ever pride to birth 
 Thou wouldst assume the leadership of nations, 
 Dethrone the free, ride on the boundless girth, 
 Teach every son the soldier's fierce elations, 
 Dream drunk ambition's schemes of world wide dominations/' 
 
 "Peace overtures were treated with defiance, 
 The weaker states were trampled without fear. 
 Thou buildest state with science wise appliance 
 For that great hour thou sawest, drawest near. 
 What wonder that each national compeer 
 Did stand and gaze, debating with great Life 
 Their hopes to live upon the struggling sphere? 
 All saw the doom. The lightning flashing knife 
 Time's curtain cut and each soul like a seer 
 Beheld the world plunged in volcanic strife; 
 Thou, many, strong and armed didst nurse it as a wife," 
 
 62 
 
"And when the royal Austrian did receive 
 The natural consequence, what then didst Thou? 
 Against all hope, 'gainst all we can believe 
 Thou didst inspire in them the when and how 
 To plant the heel upon the Serbian brow. 
 And when the Russ sprang forth to his defense'"" ' 
 And nations did their own existence vow, 
 Thy mighty armies, swift, ruthless and immense, 
 Just like old Nature with her earthquake plow, 
 Drove headlong on devoid of righteous sense, 
 Quick filled the world with strifes of mad omnipotence." 
 
 "And then thy church and scientific seers 
 Unto the world most civilized did call 
 For faith and hope and swore to their compeers : 
 'This war was thrust upon us and we all 
 Must fight for life though death the world appall!' 
 Oh tear the lie forth from thy heart and hand! 
 Why should the false thy spirit so enthrall! 
 Hast thou not strength to front the truth and stand 
 Upon the facts! Shall self deceptions stall 
 The judgment off and thy denials command 
 The elemental minds that think in every land!" 
 
 "Red origin and cause, look on thy deeds! 
 Behold the mighty masses of thy slain! 
 This slaughter house and butchery of breeds 
 And thou thyself as blind, lost and insane! 
 See thine own sons that science doth domain, 
 On whom doth shine a cosmic glory great, 
 The primest souls earth ever did attain. 
 Designed and taught for leadership of state. 
 Behold them slaughtered and slaughtering in their tram 
 As scientific butchers none can mate! 
 As maggot meat and dung, thy sons but contemplate!" 
 
 "Behold yon crown, that crown of living blood! 
 Ten million murders have into it been strained. 
 A world of hearts here poured the precious floo<i. 
 All hell-born crimes have into it been stained 
 And Life's worst life has into it been drained; 
 Around the base, up to the peaks, and where 
 Bright glowing jewels should be is fully veined 
 With flowing blood, with blood that thou didst dare 
 To ruthless shed and more than death disdained. 
 This crown of blood with guilt so rich and rare 
 I place it on thy brow, Thou shalt it ever wear!" 
 
 63 
 
"Hark! Canst thou not hear that cry of lamentation? 
 Vast orphan hosts that for their fathers weep; 
 The war-wed brides are breathing imprecation; 
 Great widow hosts are chanting dirges deep 
 And even sires feel curses in them leap- 
 Sad Rachel there, the mother of humanity, 
 And Adam strong their sorrows cannot keep. 
 Now on their loss, now on thy blind inanity, 
 Now round thy soul the heavy dirges sweep; 
 Now plumb down plumb as curses on profanity 
 The guilt of all this strife strikes on thy inhumanity." 
 
 "Oft, oft alone, lighted by sunlike thought, 
 Softer in soul and finer in thy sense. 
 Thou surely shalt by Memory stern be brought 
 To travel up and down this line immense 
 To see and think. Then power now is suspense, 
 Thy conscience dead, shall mount unto its throne; 
 Her solemn words of vast omnipotence 
 Shall reach thy soul that never dare disown; 
 Disrobed of mask, falsehood and all defence, 
 Tortures and guilt shall then be freely known, 
 Repentance or despair, darkness and tears and groan. 
 
 "Look on the past! A worse is yet to come; 
 Behold thy deeds of crimson crimson red! 
 Though thou art bold thou wilt be 'ghast and dumb 
 And feel the curse that rests above thy head. 
 Though .swift success has to the moment led 
 And victory last upon thy banners fly 
 From thine own heart is sure disaster fed 
 And soon or late thou shalt beneath it lie, 
 For pride and greed Fate marks as for the dead. 
 Depart, depart, chaotic cosmos high, 
 A brand is on thy brow, a blindness on thy eye!" 
 
 "England, stand forth! Haste thee! Why art thou slow? 
 Art thou afraid and dost thou dread the hour 
 And shunest Life as if she were thy foe? 
 Stand up to judgment! Gather up thy power 
 For thou wilt need thy ancient virtuous dower! 
 The elemental spirit of the globe 
 And she upon the cosmic azure bower 
 Doth call thee up and will thy being probe. 
 Now thou art here thou standest like a tower; 
 Dost thou Invite the lightning to disrobe, 
 Fire, wind and flood and foe to test thee like a Job?" 
 
 64 
 
"Does not some dark disintegrating curse 
 Upon thy heart and in thy vitals prey? 
 Does not disease unconscious and so woise 
 Eat out the strength, defiance, front and stay 
 That glowed in thee in thy more ancient day? 
 Does not the test, the elemental fight, 
 Old nature's hour, the first born champion fray, 
 The naked strife, now in all human sight. 
 Write vast interrogations on thy way? 
 Is thy day done? Has another now the right 
 To full disarmour thee and clothe her in thy might?" 
 
 "Now here thou art, old mistress of the sea, 
 Long ruling Queen before high heaven's face, 
 The mother of great institutions free, 
 The colonizer of the world, the base 
 Of glorious Liberty, promise and grace 
 Of that great age that feeds life and delight 
 And long the hope of all the human race 
 For civilization, for manhood and for right. 
 But now alas! When nature sets the pace. 
 Before the world's wide wide astonished sight 
 With hardly strength to stand an elemental fight." 
 
 "Thou has been deaf and dumb and blind asleep; 
 The whole world saw the prophecies of life. 
 And warning blasts swept mountain, plain and deep 
 And thee they shook, oft, oft with anguish rife. 
 To wake and see the swift approaching strife; 
 But like a giant, old, heavy, slow and blind. 
 Too fat to feel the soldier's piercing fife 
 Thou safest in the sunshine soft and kind 
 And lost the power to wield the lightning knife; 
 But day and night thy secret foes did bind 
 Their armour to their soul and great war plans designed. 
 
 "Then when the war blasts sudden shock the earth 
 How didst thou rise with bluster loud and great! 
 Thou wouldst ride down all military birth 
 And on them build a new and peaceful state 
 That thou wouldst lead and henceforth dominate! 
 How confident thou didst go to the fires 
 But like the vainest challenger of fate 
 Thou couldst not stand the cinerating ires 
 All things reduce. Sad, sad to contemplate 
 Thee swiftly shorn of prestige pomp at"^ires 
 And seeming lost and dead the virtue of thy sirei." 
 
"When waging war, war for thy very life, 
 Henceforth the free or slaves of pride and power. 
 Queen of the sea, the Future's chosen wife. 
 Or else a thing to hide and crouch and cower, 
 Now, even now internal strifes divide 
 Thy strength, doth thee divide, defame and curse 
 Far more than ought the enemy can shower. 
 Thy high ?<nd low from selfish greeds unpurse 
 Such vices as would mine high heaven's tower 
 And the very gods that crown the universe 
 Plunge to defeat and night and evermore immerse/' 
 
 "A year is gone and thou art just awake, 
 Just rising up and rubbing out thine eyes ; 
 Not even yet its seriousness can take. 
 Just standing with half wonder and surprise, 
 Unmeasuring still the foes that 'gainst thee rise. 
 You need the punch, a trampling neath defeat, 
 Thy London flamed or the invader's prize; 
 Some shame, gigantic shame on thee should seat 
 And slavery face the soul that in thee lies; 
 Then thou wouldst spring and in thy bosom beat 
 The soldier, man and priest the future glad would greet," 
 
 "A year is gone and still divisions prey. 
 The 'future on the sea' and fierce elation 
 'To grasp the trident' are victors on their waj^ 
 And all thy hopes are in some other nation, 
 To hold thee up against their exaltation. 
 Oh shadow of past greatness ? Is not a curse 
 On thee? Where is the fight? Does this creation 
 Thy .successor call that will thy strength disburse? 
 The vast round globe in doubtful agitation 
 Stands wondering if thou canst yet unpurse 
 The one united soul that can thy foes disperse." 
 
 "But if the curse and cancer are too deep, - 
 If sordid self, ign'rance and social blight 
 Have eaten out the virtues that can keep 
 The royal place both at the front and height, 
 Still let the Fates rule in resistless might! 
 Naught can withstand old Nature's sweeping train; 
 Who has the power is victor in the fight 
 And they must pass who hinder tmd restrain. 
 So thou didst rise, so didst thou hold thy right; 
 So evermore the destines ordain; 
 go overmore must state arise and pass domain l"' 
 
 66 
 
^'Great Nation that did bring so much to "birth. 
 That gave so rich the elements of soul, 
 That feed so free the virtues of old earth, 
 That sighted heart unto life's shining goal, 
 That lodged in mind the solar thoughts that pole, 
 That gave the love of liberty to Life, 
 And sent hosts forth unto the years tbat roll 
 As soldiers true that breast the tyrant's strife. 
 To think thee thus, to dream defeat and toll, 
 It woundeth heart, it pierces like a knife 
 Into the heart of love bereaved of child and wife." 
 
 "Hear thou the truth! By it earth must abide! 
 If thou dost lead the world in civilization, 
 If on thy soul the cosmic virtues ride, 
 If thou canst grace the peaks of domination 
 And lead the race to life's new recreation, 
 Then still abide, forever hold thy place, ^ 
 
 Call up thy powers in swift rejuvenation, 
 Purge out the curse, fling far the dark disgrace 
 And rise again out of thy degredation! 
 Reclothe thee like the fathers of thy race. 
 And wage the ruthless war to life's victorious base!" 
 
 "But if not such, if thy great work is done. 
 If thy best contributions have been made. 
 If thou art now a fading setting sun. 
 And another must with new resources weighted 
 Lead on the world and lift her rearrayed 
 And new inspired unto a nobler chart. 
 If another soul, wise, cosmic and obeyed 
 Can draw the heart out of this human heart 
 And lift it to the light so long betrayed. 
 Then let her come! Allegiance I must bart. 
 Doubt resteth over thee. Depart, I sigh, depart!" 
 
 "United States, stand forth! Ha! On the spot! 
 I^eaping forth as to a benediction! 
 Oh Soul, thou art too young, keen, swift and hot 
 To front the judgment! 'Tis but a fiction 
 To self and wealth that never dreams restricftion. 
 Too young and full and rich art thou to think, 
 And unacquaint with tribulating friction 
 With which old Europe in her conflicts sink. 
 But barken! I will put 'daggers in the diction' 
 And send them home through pleasure, strife and swink 
 And from thy wounded heart new draughts thy soul shall drink. 
 
 G7 
 
"There is a curse, an unadulterated, 
 Uncompounded and quintessential curse 
 Within thy soul, and ever fatter fed 
 By riches vast that nature doth unpurse 
 And by thy greed still growing worse and worse. 
 There is a curse of vast portentous sign 
 Within thy heart. Piosperity doth nurse 
 The causes dread, contagious and malign. 
 The virtuous Powers that crown the universe 
 Beholdeth thee with solemn solemn eyne, 
 And fear a final blight to Life's ideals divine." 
 
 "War is a test that tries life to the deep. 
 See this gigantic and infernal strife! 
 See these new scientific breeds that sweep 
 Destructions and annihilations rife 
 Upon themselves and all the hopes of life! 
 These battles see that shake the whole creation 
 Like nature with her lightning flashing knife 
 Blasting the mass, betweens and every station 
 And all ideals religions ever wife! 
 See all the tribes in blindest impulsation 
 On one another drive Death's swift annihilation!" 
 
 "The test supreme tries thee and thou dost fail; 
 This strife that points a new aeonic age. 
 From nature, man and state strips off all mall 
 To nakedness, and Life writes on her page 
 The essences, the elements all cage; 
 Now thou art found a servant of the mart, 
 A barterer as battles deadly wage, 
 A dealer in the lightning slaying art, 
 Trader in death, in blood and strife and rage, 
 Blind as a beast to life's celestial chart. 
 Gloating on gold that feeds corruption to thy heart!" 
 
 "Behold thyself, the youngest, richest state, 
 In this new sphere brought forth for larger hope, 
 Undowered with resources that might make 
 A commonwealth high up on heaven's slope. 
 In birth and youth and in that mighty cope 
 For Liberty thou wert a glorious dream 
 And Life's desires that in the blindness grope 
 Beheld the lights that through the darkness gleam! 
 Free institutions, democratic dope, 
 Expansions vast and prophecies did seem 
 The virtues long desired that would the world redeem!" 
 
"But now, thou art a ghastlier sight than fields 
 Of slaughtered dead and slaughtering hosts insane, 
 For thy munition plants with groaning yields 
 The instruments annihilations rain. 
 Then think themselves as virtuous from ail stain. 
 That mighty strife has ancient roots and cause 
 That makes them blind, mad, savage and profane; 
 But thou dost know and keep no other law 
 But thy one love, the love of sordid gain. 
 The base desire destroys all sacred awe, 
 More greed and death and shame, it in and round doth draw/ 
 
 "Does Germany now lead this civilization? 
 Is she the hope of this long travailing race? 
 Does victory, her science domination 
 Mean for the v/orld a recreating base 
 On which mankind will rise with glorious grace? 
 Her efficiency might well inspire the world. 
 Does not the cosmic Soul smile on her face? 
 There reasgn's powers, elsewhere so blindly whirled^ 
 Builds up a state that Life might glad embrace. 
 If right and true why art thou on her hurled? 
 If best for man and life why blast her flag unfurled?" 
 
 "But when didst thou such questions e'er debate? 
 The high philosophies of life and time 
 Didst thou e'er see and pause to contemplate? 
 The sacred awes and fellowships sublime 
 Of that wise world above this strife and crime 
 Is blind to thee, is full eclipsed and blind, 
 Is lost and dead and buried in the grime 
 That covers thee as thou dost groan and grind 
 To gather, heap, and view the gold so prime. 
 Lost, lost to thought! Far, far from all divined! 
 Cold, cold to life and love! Dead, dead to all designed!'* 
 
 "The Mother see, bulwark of liberty. 
 The parent soul from whom thy soul was fed, 
 Who gave the best that still is found in thee 
 And who is now the front and stay and head 
 Of all the hopes democracy has bred! 
 If just a little change upon the sea 
 Thy full resource against her would be led 
 To blast her strength and blast her liberty 
 Into the deep as to a scopion's bed. 
 Her virtues high have small appeal to thee; 
 High gleaming piles of gold are thy divinity." 
 
 69 
 
'"And then thou mouthest of .lumaiiitv, 
 Of justice, friendship, honor, law and right, 
 And brandest Germany for her insanity 
 And England in her exercise of might, 
 Both desperate in a fierce and final fight. 
 Hark, hark ye hosts! How, how can such a priest 
 The ideals preach into a world of blight? 
 And now c?nst thou who doth supremely feast 
 On marts and gold preach to these passions white 
 Life's saving dreams that come out of the east. 
 But never come to thee, thy soul blind and deceased?" 
 
 "Behold thyself! In all that recreates 
 The man, the city, state and wider nation, 
 Unto the dreams that Wisdom contemplates 
 And haileth as the crowns of civilization. 
 In all true greatness, virtue and exaltation 
 Thou hast one strife but priest or poet none 
 The world can hail as helpers to its station. 
 In all that makes life worthy to be run, 
 Deeds, visions, songs and glorious inspiration 
 There is small hope in thee. Thou an undone 
 By blind material greeds, greeds that are just begun!" 
 
 "Imposing Soul, with great resources vast, 
 Thou art a disappointment unto Life! 
 The chosen seed, the time the sower cast. 
 This hemisphere so far removed from strife 
 And over thee Life's hopes with hope so rife, 
 And now when in the furnace test thou art 
 A dread disease that Death alone can wife 
 Reveals itself as central to thy heart. 
 Too deep, too deep for any surgeon's knife; 
 Of all the disappointments time doth bart 
 Thou art the greatest yet. Depart, fat Soul, depart!" 
 
 "Oh Life! Oh Man! Oh State! Why should the Soul 
 In all her long historic contemplations 
 See bright above the splendors of life's goal. 
 And then below the ancient degradations 
 Forever cling to these high civilizations? 
 Why should the evolution from the slime 
 Of savage beast unto the thinker's stations 
 Forever hold such vast gigantic crime 
 As now and then doth slay all inspirations. 
 The inspirations by which the thinkers climb 
 Life's mountain peaks to view far ages pure and prime?" 
 
 TO 
 
"Why must Life's sorrows, loss and indignation 
 Oft, oft, so oft her faith and hope immerse 
 As she beholds the powers that crown all station 
 Turn beasts again, ferocious, mad and worse? 
 Why should such sight within her spirit nurse 
 All passions white and feed her with despair. 
 Till blind and lost she utters forth a curse 
 Upon the curse on man and earth and air? 
 Why should the hopes that crown the universe 
 Oft hold debate, if man so wise and fair 
 Be but a brute disguised, short distance from his liar?" 
 
 "Here now we see the world's triumvirate. 
 Abounding wealth and liberty and science. 
 The three great Powers Life did congratulate 
 And struck with them her long and last alliance. 
 Behold them now! In deadliest defiance 
 Of all the hopes that maketh life a hope 
 They arm themselves with every death appliance 
 And deck with mangled dead this cosmic slope. 
 Life, Love and Hope must lose their old reliance 
 As they behold this fierce titanic cope 
 Of life's supremest powers and war's insanest dope." 
 
 "Oh curse and dirge! Oh sorrow and fierce hate! 
 Betw^een ye two the world doth ever swing. 
 The thinkers wise that ever contemplate 
 Would see the world that Hg^pe would ever bring. 
 But see this sense and greed besotten thing. 
 No wonder that the mighty conflicts urge 
 The desperate hate that must its curses fling, 
 But Oh so vain to stay and heal and purge; 
 Must utter curse and oft in sorrow sing 
 Some fragment strains of life's eternal dirge 
 That moaneth round the earth like the eternal surge.'* 
 
 "Titanic wrath! Vast earthquake rending strife! 
 Your passion fills and drives me blind and tense. 
 Ye have straight struck all dream of hope and life 
 And worlds fall down in ruins most immense, 
 Worlds, ruined worlds of morals, mind and sense 
 Have fallen round like earthquake shattered wrecks. 
 Life's ideal hopes and wisdom and defense 
 Are dead and hacked, and all that henceforth decks 
 The future slopes is strife new greeds incense. 
 And other wars that ever curse and vex 
 With little hope that Life shall make diviner treks." 
 
 71 
 
"Cease, cease the song! Give brain and bosom rest! 
 Oh let soul pause and let her calmer think! 
 Into the infinite and as a guest 
 Let spirit go and thought and virtue drink! 
 As down in elemental being sink 
 The white hot passions of intensest ire, 
 And mindless of the fates upon life's brink 
 Are there refilled with a serener fire, 
 SO' let me pass from all I hate and shrink 
 Into the Soul wise thinkers most desire! 
 Faith, Hope and Love again, revisit and inspire!" 
 
 THE STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER 
 
 No. 3 
 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever! 
 'Tis a nation shaking time; 
 There is darkness, strife and slaughter 
 
 Like the elements in crime; 
 There is passion fierce and glowing 
 
 Round the earth in every clime. 
 Like the shoutings round the colors 
 To the world the Sisters chime: 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever! 
 Shout, shout it to the strife! 
 , The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 To the shot and shell and knife! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 
 To our last resources rife! 
 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 
 Is far deeper than our life! 
 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever! 
 
 Thus the nation shouted then 
 When the shouter must be soldier 
 And the struggle called for men. 
 Is another strife before us? 
 
 Must the free for freedom bout? 
 Lift her up and springing forward 
 Shake the nation with the shout: 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever! 
 
 Never, ne'er so much as now! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 
 On her altars all I vow! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 Though the sword my being plow! 
 
 72 
 
The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 Be forever o'er my brow! 
 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever! 
 
 There's a blessing in the curse; 
 From the strife the struggle bringeth 
 
 Souls that front the universe. 
 To the selfish fling defiance 
 
 Though death darkness doth immerse! 
 In sacrifice the soul is found 
 
 That the world delights to nurse. 
 The Stars and Stripes Porever, 
 
 When the nation feels the need! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 
 When she calls the ancient breed! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 
 When the sword must do the deed! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever! 
 We will follow! Let her lead! 
 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever! 
 Oh behold her on the height! 
 Now around her is a glory- 
 That to free men feeds delight. 
 There are soldiers, struggles, victors, 
 
 Richest mem'ries, richer hopes, 
 And an earthquake shaking shouting 
 That is climbing heav'n's slopes: 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever! 
 
 To the heav'ns roll her free! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 Has resistless power and plea! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 
 We have vowed our lives to thee! 
 The Stars and Stripes Forever, 
 Oh forever o'er us be! 
 
 THE HIGHLAND PIPERS 
 
 I stoop upon the Campus square 
 
 To watch old Scotland pass. 
 The city's thronging crowds were there 
 
 In sea like surge and mass. 
 Beside me jesters laughed galore 
 
 At kilts and tartan stripes; 
 Contempt and keen sarcasms tore 
 
 The music of the pipes. -- 
 
 73 
 
Then instant something^ in the blood 
 
 Sprang up as out of sleep, 
 And passion like a rushing flood 
 
 Did into action leap. 
 It tore away the sense of years; 
 
 It flred the heart and tongue; 
 And like old Scotland's fighting peers 
 
 It down upon them sprung: 
 
 "Who, who are ye that grinning' mock 
 
 My native tartan stripes, 
 And laughter, jest and scornings fling 
 
 On piper and his pipes? 
 This costume strange and strident strain 
 
 Is but life's thin disguise. 
 But measure now with those that march 
 
 And thou wilt find thy size." 
 
 "The connoisseurs and .sonneteers 
 
 And guilded things of grace 
 May throw their snifflings on our ears 
 
 And jest upon this race; 
 But those who fought to set Life free,. 
 
 The strong', scarred, rough and fine,. 
 Delighted cry when these they spy: 
 
 'Here comes the fighting line,' " 
 
 "Of all the greatness in the earth, 
 
 The highest great is man; 
 One such outweighs the globe in worth. 
 
 Strikes out our noblest plan. 
 A very few Life in relief 
 
 Sets up for all to scan; 
 A man alone can be a chief 
 
 And piper of the clan." 
 
 "Upon old Scotland's heather hills. 
 
 Old Nature breeds a race; 
 Her elemental passion fills 
 
 For front and foremost place. 
 To march them on to high renown, 
 
 To match both friends and foes. 
 The pipers march them up and down 
 
 As life is maiched and glows." 
 
 "At Waterloo they were reserved, 
 
 Until a doomsday hour; 
 Then sudden loosed, they onward swept 
 
 74 
 
With avalanchic power. 
 At Balaklava's deathless charge 
 
 The line did they not lead; 
 Behold! Behold! They hellward rush, 
 
 A death defying breed." 
 
 "In Europe and in Asia old, 
 
 Here where life higher runs, 
 All round the globe, the pipers bold 
 
 Have led old Scotland's sons. 
 All nations cherish and reward 
 
 Their heroes high and grand. 
 But soul to soul and sword to sword 
 
 Few with the pipers stand." 
 
 "Though now they march for Scotland's name. 
 
 And now for civic pride, 
 And now for pleasure, now for fame, 
 
 And now for those who died; 
 They never march so straight and tall 
 
 With soldier-piper glee, 
 As when they hear old Freedom call 
 
 To battle for the free." 
 
 "Whenever Freedom leads the fight. 
 
 There gather doth the clans; 
 The passion elemental, white. 
 
 Old Scotland feeds and fans. 
 She is the foremost in the fight. 
 
 The fiercest in the strife, 
 The clans and pipers, left and right, 
 
 Carve out the way of Life," 
 
 "I love the artists and the arts, 
 
 Great orchestras and bands. 
 The golden lyre and lyric fire 
 
 Of swift poetic hands. 
 Though breeding never can deny 
 
 Old Glory's stars and stripes. 
 Birth has her claim and greets with flame. 
 
 The Highlanders and pipes/ 
 
 SCOTCH WAR SONG 
 
 Old Scotland dear! Old Scotland dear! 
 
 With floods of flaming passions 
 Thy sons are mounting up the sphere 
 
 In soldier hero fashions, 
 
 75 
 
Thy presence and thy tfunipet blast 
 
 The soul in soul has sounded; 
 Thy sons and daughters round the earth 
 To thee have instant bounded. 
 Old Scotland live! Forevet live! 
 Nor life nor death shall sever! 
 My country to the endless age 
 
 Oh perish never, never! 
 But Scotland and great Liberty 
 Forever and forever! 
 
 We fight because the fighting blood 
 
 Within our veins is leaping. 
 The war hosts like a blinded flood 
 
 Are rising, rushing, sweeping. 
 Great Liberty is calling loud; 
 
 Our answer fills the arches: 
 "Our sons and daughters must be free 
 
 On life's immortal marches." 
 
 Old Scotland live! Forever, live! etc. 
 
 Great Wallace, Bruce and Douglas yet 
 
 Both high and low are feeding; 
 The Gordens, Campbells, Camerons, Macs, 
 
 The old line yet are breeding. 
 The rich red crimson stream of yore 
 
 Within the breast is flowing. 
 The spirit of the fathers old 
 
 Is burning, flaming, glowing. 
 
 Old Scotland live! Forever live! etc. 
 
 My Country, I am proud of thee! 
 
 Thou in me now art singing. 
 Thy sons unto the latest man. 
 
 Unto the ranks are springing. 
 The strong, ancestral, native soul 
 
 Is girding, arming, sighting; 
 And every Scot around the globe 
 
 Is standing up and fighting'. 
 
 Old Scotland live! Forever live! etc. 
 
 The highlands and the lowlands send 
 
 Strong —--•--'- as of granite. 
 That man to man and sword to sword 
 
 Can front all on the planet. 
 There is the sound to forward march; 
 
 We're into action flying. 
 For Scotland, Liberty and Right 
 
 76 
 
We battle to the dying. 
 
 Old Scotland live! Forever live! 
 
 Nor life nor death shall sever! 
 My country to the endless age 
 
 Oh perish never, never! 
 But Scotland and great Liberty 
 
 Forever and forever! 
 
 LINCOLN 
 
 1809-1865 
 
 Oh Nature rich! Ripe Virtue of the nation! 
 High Spirit pure enthroned upon the height! 
 A type supreme of higher soul creation 
 That grows divine unto our mortal blight! 
 Thou feedest to our far-uplifted sight 
 The greatest need of life and time and nations, 
 For thou wert one the powers of truth and right 
 Sent into life, and up our hard gradations 
 Trained thee for strife against the storms of night. 
 Victorious sou] ! Spirit of inspirations ! 
 One of the dreams of man! One of God's high creations! 
 
 Cruel Nature was and yet most kind to thee 
 When thou wert cast down at the base of life 
 For at the base great things and men must be. 
 Thy towering strength, ungainly gaunt, was rife 
 With jest and many a sharp sarcastic knife 
 Cut into thee. The kind old rugged nurse 
 Bound up thy wounds, and with a Spartan fife 
 Bade thee to stand and face the powers that curse. 
 She put thee up against the growing strife 
 And with thy growth did stir the elements worse, 
 Until at last, alone, strong as the universe. 
 
 Oft, often locked in many a mortal strife, 
 The vanctuished spared or flung off bruised or dead. 
 Thou, rising up with fountains of new life, 
 Bidst front the men who shook earth with their tread. 
 Into the pass where hosts in vain had bled 
 The mother thrust and knew that thou wouldst van 
 The world, for thy humanity was red 
 For generous life and for all men did plan. 
 Strong was the arm, high, high the lighted head. 
 Wise, wise the eye that did the nation scan 
 When V^^^ orp:^mc strength took up the cause of man. 
 
 77 
 
There was a day when Liberty's youn^ nation 
 Desired a man to save the institutions. 
 "Arise, arise!" she cried in desperation, 
 "Against the storms, traitors and executions 
 That threaten death to time's best evolutions ! " 
 Thou camest forth. The nation saw. Great Right 
 Sprang up and spurned her abject prostitutions. 
 Ready for war but shrinking from the fight, 
 Forth to the strife, defying soft solutions, 
 Into the black and lightning flashing night 
 To victory they went with thy contagious might. 
 
 Though those four years, blood-stained and stormed and plowei 
 What heavy weights and crimson, crimson tears 
 Thy spirit shed and often body bowed! 
 The stress of war eclipsed the world with fears, 
 But thou wert found, one of creation's peers, 
 A grand old type that man forever hails 
 And stations high to crown these mortal spheres, 
 Tall leader strong, gath'ring the line that fails; 
 A hero true the battle front reveres; 
 Courage and faith that o'er assault prevails; 
 A master man of men no time or greatness pales. 
 
 High, generous "and most maganimous soul! 
 Pine quality, the rarest in the earth! 
 Part of the Infinite whose virtues roll 
 And now and then find being from the dearth! 
 Man's moulds were broke; time's standards of all worth 
 Destroyed; ideals old dethroned, and new 
 Conceptual forms rose to immortal birth. 
 Plain, simple, honest, common and warm and true, 
 Thy rich magnanimous soul of saving mirth 
 Leads hence the mind to the highest heights we view, 
 And man and life and time in form divine renew. 
 
 Leader, martyr, prophet and president. 
 Where the great cosmopolitan councils meet, 
 Those spirits vast unanimous in consent 
 Invite thee up to their presiding seat. 
 Famed Congregation, where the ages greet 
 Each other, and time's mightiest souls unite 
 To rain on earth the life that is our meat. 
 Out of your ^o«+c: of genius, lore and might. 
 Song, courage, faith, self-sacrifice and feat. 
 Have ye but one that measures to his height? 
 A higher type of man to rule you as his right? 
 
Though far aloft and growing more divine, 
 More wide the years and intervening space* 
 Rare magic powers out of thy spirit twine 
 And bind thee close, still closer to our race. 
 The ripe humanity upon thy face. 
 Thy warm hand-clasp and eyes inviting kind 
 Draw into life out of our hearts' embrace, 
 "Father," "'Brother," 'Prophet," and names that bind 
 The hearts of men across all time and pl8ce. 
 Plain Spirit great, through thee we are divined. 
 Thou feedest us with life; through thee we are divined. 
 
 GRANT 
 
 1822-1885 
 
 Men like a fighter. The elemental life 
 That surges up and drives the universe 
 With this convulsive strain and endless strife 
 Leaps into soul and doth forever nurse 
 Desire for him no battles can coerce. 
 Men like the man who fronts these grinding spheres, 
 Defying Fate and all she can unpurse; 
 That armored stands 'gainst darkness, death and fears 
 And from the deep calls the eternal curse. 
 When such a soul upon the globe appears 
 Men stand in pause and feed the hunger of their years. 
 
 And such wert thou, a true heroic soul; 
 A noble type though in deceptive mould; 
 So blinded Life that should our spirits pole 
 Neglected thee. Thy mighty powers enrolled 
 Were all penned up, and in that narrow hold 
 Were battles fierce that rent thy globe with strife. 
 Great spirit-gifts that find no end unfold 
 Within the heart hell's elemental life. 
 Who, who could dream thy spirit long unpoled 
 Fought not dark fiends with fierce distempers rife 
 And learned to wield a sword swift as the lightning's knife? 
 
 When thou didst hear great Liberty's last call 
 To free the world and ages of all slaves 
 That mighty Soul thy spirit did enthrall 
 And gave the sword but prophesied the graves; 
 Such was the prize, but such as thou but craves 
 The loyalty that sets the spirit free, 
 
 79 
 
Erect and poised, calm, wise and strong, the waves 
 Of strife dashed on tempestuous as tlie sea; 
 ±iut like a rock round which the tempest raves 
 Thou didst out-think, out-wear, out-fight and be 
 The genius of the strife and hope of victory. 
 
 From Donalson to Appomattox close 
 Thou foughtest on resistless as is Fate, 
 Through bloody fields and earthquake rending throes 
 Where Death all troops did fiercest mutilate 
 Thou did'st press ok nor dreamed to hesitate. 
 Life stood aghast. The world cried out in fear. 
 Thy erstwhile friends did curses imprecate. 
 Real "war is hell." To some thou didst appear 
 A demon mad but blood could satiate; 
 Yet through it all soft mercy stern and dear 
 Sat on thy fighting soul to guide the world's career. 
 
 Thy iron strength was wed to granite truth. 
 Thy reverence for the laws was most sublime. 
 Simplicity dwelt in thy heart with ruth 
 And honor there with sovereign power did rhyme. 
 Magnanimousness, the seal on spirits prime. 
 Was stamped on thee by heaven's highest hand. 
 Yet all of these passed through the fires like crime 
 Till at the last thy spirit forth did stand 
 A hierarchal prince and soul of time 
 That Life and Man forever shall command, 
 First, first in ruthless war! First, first in Mercy's band! 
 
 If ever man stood on the adamant 
 And manhood virtuous base and could dispense 
 With childish paraphernalias that enchant 
 The world, thou wert that man. Pride and pretence 
 Are guilded twins and were to thee offense. 
 Thy royal soul despised life's little shows 
 And stood before the world in that defense 
 That character and fiercest fight bestows. 
 We cannot dream round thee the ornaments 
 Of kings, and placed in royal lineage rows 
 Thou towerest over them as conqueror over foes. 
 
 Few, few, but few of all the soldier line 
 Could cross full swords or stand up straight with thee. 
 A Washington or Cromwell spirit fine 
 That fights to set life's highest spirit free. 
 Thy equals are, the most but butchers be. 
 Great soldier chief, thou art a man's delight! 
 
 80' 
 
Poise, power and grace shall never from thee flee! 
 Who clears himself where giant spirits fight 
 Draws giant men with swift resistless plea. 
 In every man a soldier stands upright 
 And meeting thee salutes with passions glowing white. 
 
 When thou didst go life's last and lonely march 
 Thy name and deeds were clothed with immortality. 
 Musicians, troops, banners, applause and arch 
 Conducted thee unto the high courtality 
 Of Fame! With hosts of this mortality 
 The eternal great did welcome thee on high. 
 Bright splendor did adorn the wide portality 
 And round it hosts of geniuses did cry: 
 "Thrice welcome here, thou grand reality 
 Of life! The state is Queen within this sky. 
 Be thou her right hand strength and stand forever nigh." 
 
 "For thou art one to pillar up a state. 
 High elements were poured in thee at birth. 
 Though almost snuffed by blind remorseless Fate 
 Thou foughtest through the darkness, strife and dearth 
 Unto these thrones of everlasting worth. 
 Now this immortal Fellowship sublime 
 That doth sustain and recreates the earth, 
 Commissions thee unto an office prime: 
 'Be thou thyself and to the nation's girth 
 Rain thou thy life, and from repressive time 
 Lead civic virtue up to our celestial clime ! ' " 
 
 PEACE 
 
 Celestial Peace! Great Nature! Soul divine! 
 Incarnate Hope of all the best desire 
 For which mankind doth ever pray and pine! 
 Ripe Grace supreme to these contentions dire 
 And with thy calm serene celestial fire 
 Enthroned above all time and toil and strife. 
 How could the world beneath the blinded ire 
 Of nation against nation mad and rife 
 But long for thee and all thou dost inspire! 
 In this dread hour no wonder that great Life 
 Hails thee with boundless joy and would thee wed as wife! 
 
 Great Princess, Queen, Immortaless of earth 
 Art thou, but yet no people, state or land, 
 
 81 
 
Though thou wouldst be a heav'n unto their dearth 
 Have thee enthroned and given full command. 
 All thee delight to entertain, and stand 
 With welcomes rich and songs that glorious hail 
 And oft it seems thy reign is just at hand; 
 But suddenly the endless strifes assail 
 And slandered foul and sometimes with a brand 
 Thou flLeest forth into the wild and wail, 
 A stranger driven forth, an alien sad and pale. 
 
 Today again from Europe thou hast fled; 
 Gigantic .strife, distempered and profane. 
 Against all hopes that man has ever fed 
 Has driven thee who can alone sustain 
 Life, virtue, thought, resources and domain. 
 Look on the hour! Behold the prayer and plea! 
 The heavens are called to bridle and restain 
 And send us peace whate'er the price may be. 
 Unmindful of the hopes that may be slain, 
 Hopes of the wise, the dreams of high and free, 
 Eternal hate to war, delight in liberty. 
 
 One with thy name but most unlike to thee. 
 Clad in thy robes and smiling with thy grace 
 Our presidents and popes call us to see 
 And lead her forth that life may fond embrace. 
 Is this the soul to Queen this modern race? 
 The spirit that can scepter this mankind? 
 The honor that the world's foundations base? 
 The virtue unto glorious ends designed? 
 Is this the peace whose breast we might unlace 
 And in its deep could never never find 
 The curse that brings the wars that doth this human grind? 
 
 Away, away with this huge masquerade! 
 But hold! Let politics bring forth their dream! 
 Tear off the rags from this false liveried jade 
 And place her near her nature's far extreme! 
 A harlot she, her progeny doth seem 
 The selfish, cowards, traitors, liberticides. 
 Abortions foul, deformities that stream 
 From hell, corruption's brood, a spawn that hides 
 From light and truth and with dishonors team! 
 Away! Away! Give us the peace that rides 
 On royal, royal truth and unto honor guides! 
 
 Thou art the sister twin of Liberty 
 Were ye not nursed at one maternal breast? 
 
 82 
 
Did not the mother dream and tram in ye 
 x^vo ciiarycters to crown all beings' crest? 
 Were ye not sent in heav'nly virtues dressed, 
 Twin spirits who would guide and lift mankind 
 In courses rich, divine and great and blest! 
 As she her inspirations doth unbind 
 On battle fields where free and tyrant wrest, 
 So thou a nobler destiny doth find 
 In leading on the sphere as Reason high designed. 
 
 Thou art our peace. For thee we bleed and bleed, 
 Cry out in prayer, strong supplications pour, 
 Bow down in soul, present our awful need, 
 Unbind the wounds that bleed and bleed still more 
 And lift them up to heav'n as all implore. 
 Oh give us peace! We bleed we bleed for peace! 
 The cry comes from being's inmost core, 
 All ti availing ages lend the prayer increase. 
 From all the earth it gathers strength and store 
 And calls on God and heav'n and earth to cease 
 The long infernal wars and rest supernal lease. 
 
 Oh give us peace! For peace we bleed and bleed. 
 All time has been but one eternal war. 
 This selfishness and blind infernal greed 
 Has drenched and drenched the heav'ns and earth in gore, 
 Today far worse than ever drenched before. 
 Oh give us peace! We bleed, we bleed for peace! 
 Ten million men, the best earth ever bore, 
 Are slaughtered and the slaughterings more increase. 
 This slaughterhouse, butchers, infernal lore — 
 Oh heav'n and earth, insane destructions cease! 
 Behold and hear the prayer and hope unto us lease! 
 
 But hark, peacemakers at all price! Intensest war 
 Still on us send if not the lasting peace 
 That cuts the cause out of the very core 
 And bids the curse forever more to cease! 
 Give us dread war, give strife a larger lease, 
 Let all life's hopes be in the struggle slain; 
 Bid men like fiends to more and more increase, 
 And make all earth a savage pen and plain; 
 Death, Science and old Hell, ye can release 
 Your hoarded mounds and swift destruction rain 
 Unless great Life shall give these glorious sisters twain. 
 
 True Liberty and Peace! Celestial Twins! 
 Pure Spirits that the earth alone can pole! 
 
 83 
 
Hope Guardians wise! I'reserves from all sins 
 And Builders of the ages that shall roll! 
 Behold! Behold! There is life's golden goal! 
 And here the kings and presidents and popes 
 With prayer for peace at any price or toll. 
 Draw to your neights! Ye are man's solar hopes! 
 Demand your full integrity of soul! 
 If granted, grant war's antidotal dopes; 
 If not, spit on all philanlhropic tropes 
 And kick them down the night, down down the blasted .slopes! 
 
 LIFE'c^ DESIRE 
 
 Oh War, War, War! Infinitudinal curse 
 That smites the world with an infernal Pan, 
 And with insanity entanglest man 
 In deadly hates! Thou dost forever nurse 
 Thy madness in these mortals, till worse and worse 
 
 Doth grow the dread eternal strife 
 
 That slays all hopes and dreams of life 
 What time they mount and these horizons scan. 
 
 All, all the world can bring to birth 
 
 But feeds and crowns thee. Lord of earth. 
 All down her course Life draws her doubtful breath; 
 All living thou dost slay, the very Lord of death. 
 
 What histories hast thou written on the earth 
 Of fiery force, of vengeance, blood and lust! 
 Oh what destroy from granduer unto dust 
 Of all men are and all they hold of worth! 
 Which of the long, long generations whose mirth 
 
 Was not eclipsed by thee and thine! 
 
 Which of the years that long untwine 
 Was not with stain, deep crimson stain out-thrust? 
 
 What nations, never pained and bowed 
 
 When thee and thine together crov/d! 
 What nations never loud, jubilant and free 
 When thou in chains were thrust as hell's hound ought to be? 
 
 Unhuman War! Infernal breed and birth! 
 Thou changest earth to hell, till revels man 
 As a maddened, drunk, unsatiated clan 
 In blood and rapine, fire and lust. The earth 
 In travailing agonies brings to the dearth 
 Abortions and monstrosities, 
 
 84 
 
Mad, mad with fierce ferocities 
 
 Against the state formed to thought's glorious plan. 
 No wonder that the rounded sphere 
 Oft trembles and grows black with fear, 
 
 For thou. Oh War, hast smitten with a curse 
 All ages, peoples, hopes and all the best they nurse. 
 
 Here on the crest of this time crowning age 
 Still Thou dost reign and turnest man to brutes. 
 Through all veneers the savagery outshoots. 
 Fierce mangling Life at her supremest stage 
 And gloating as on feasts when hungers rage. 
 
 Religion, Liberty and Science, 
 
 Life's last and best and firm alliance 
 Thou greetest as with hell derision hoots. 
 
 This dear, dear purchased civilization 
 
 Against this monstrous miscreation 
 Appalls the world, all life doth stand aghast, 
 Immortal hopes are slain, a world dirge on the blast. 
 
 Oh Peace, Oh Peace, Life calleth out for thee! 
 The voice of earth and all her generations 
 With thunder song of mountain intonations 
 Is gathering round thy throne of victory 
 In intercession to be forever free 
 
 From this eternal boundless curse 
 
 That all the hopes of life immerse. 
 Through all the wars, strife, death and mutilations. 
 
 Though bound in adamantine chain. 
 
 Though crucified and often slain. 
 Life ever sings with wider echoing tones 
 For thy millennial peace, millennial powers and thrones! 
 
 Thou hast the full resources for this life, 
 Thou canst destroy the hoar iniquities 
 Bequeathed to us by long antiquities 
 Of crime. The feeders of this endless strife. 
 The sons and swords of Mars, thy lightning knife 
 
 Must blast and hurl into the dust 
 
 To stay this blood contagious lust. 
 O'er the wide host thy soft benignities 
 
 And arching grace from heav'n above, 
 
 As o'er the sick a mother's love. 
 Can smother down time's heritage of ill 
 And nurse out of the earth a race that thou dost fill. 
 
 Thou canst destroy the insane hosts of war 
 And politics of hell by which their course 
 Is constant driven. This military force 
 
That nations drain and drive still more and more 
 Thou canst cut out, out of the breast so sore. 
 
 Cut out, cut out the gangrene strife! 
 
 Breathe in, breathe in purpureal life 
 And all that flows from thy divine resource! 
 
 Strife, greed and crime, tears and dismay 
 
 Thy grace can wipe them all away; 
 All, all of war and its infernal blight 
 Would fly before thy face as darkness from the light. 
 
 Come thou on earth with thy exhaustless heart! 
 Thou hast celestial and supremest powers. 
 Thou hast the azure and immortal dowers 
 Of sun-resplendent heaven. Thou hast and art 
 The spirit pure that in all being flowers 
 To splendor, joy and purity. 
 The hopes of all futurity 
 Doth dwell in thee and thou canst it impart. 
 Sow, sow thy potencies of life! 
 And from the very heart of strife 
 Another world with beauty and delight 
 Shall forth from chaos rise toward heaven's golden height. 
 
 Come! Bring thy royal institutes of state! 
 
 The high, supreme, majestic, honored laws 
 
 And kin to these, those reverential awes 
 
 Thy youth and age delight to contemplate 
 
 As we behold the statues of the great. 
 
 Peace, glorious peace and righteousness 
 Thy nations shall with splendor dress. 
 
 Faith, hope and joy, magnanimousness, applause, 
 Shall be the ornaments of gold 
 Each heart and brow shall then unfold. 
 
 Come, come. Oh state! What business, rule and home 
 Thy bases shall support, enkindle shall thy dome! 
 
 Oh Peace, Oh Peace, who would not long for thee? 
 Thou crowning all with virtues pure art crowned 
 And from thy heart all gifts supreme abound 
 As blessings from the azure pure and free. 
 Thy passions with the white intensity 
 
 Of love fills every welcome birth 
 
 Of thy uncrowded crowded earth. 
 Oh how the new created heavens resound 
 
 With songs of ripest sanity! 
 
 All life is one humanity! 
 One human brotherhood! One family race! 
 One many passioned heart that one heart does embrace! 
 
Come, come, Oh long delayed and golden age! 
 The age of peace, of man and all his powers, 
 Of Life's ideals and soaring sublimes! hom^s 
 Of wise conception. Oh age that will engage 
 The heightless height and boundless reach that cage 
 
 Themselves in this finality! 
 
 Oh age of immortality 
 The fountains of the Infinite assuage, 
 
 Come! Oh rise on time's foundation stones 
 
 The splendors of thy everlasting thrones ! 
 Come thou upon the morning's golden pinions 
 And round the feet of God build thou thy last dominions i 
 
 AN OLD-FASHIONED GEORGIA FATHER 
 
 I stood within my cottage gate, 
 
 And well drawn in with fear and hate 
 
 Did watch the bully that did bait 
 
 The boys draw nigh. 
 There would he touch me? I did wait 
 
 Him passing by. 
 
 He stood and talked like any chap 
 But going, gave me such a slap 
 It sounded like a leather strap 
 
 And stung with pain. 
 I scarce the tears upon the rap 
 
 Could full restrain. 
 
 When supper did the table gown 
 My father nearly knocked me down. 
 And shame upon my brow did frowm 
 
 When he would know 
 "What I had done that then young Brown 
 
 Did strike me so. 
 
 "Nothing. He bullies all the boys. 
 To fight us seems his best of joys. 
 He's big and strong and makes a noise 
 
 And wants to fight 
 And knuckles on his fist employs 
 
 To make them bite." 
 
 Then father chocked, his cheeks gre\< red 
 His eyes grew blazing in his head; 
 
 S7 
 
A mighty passion from its bed 
 Had sudden woke 
 
 And with, all strength the furnace fed 
 Thus to me spoke: 
 
 "If in this town there is a man 
 
 That lays a hand on you I'll tan 
 
 His hide till black and blue. Now scan 
 
 The big and strong, 
 Your father dares to death the clan 
 
 To right your wrong." 
 
 "But if I see or ever hear 
 
 You are a coward in your fear, 
 
 And take abuses from your peer. 
 
 And lie down base, 
 A coward, slave, shaking and sheer 
 
 Scab of disgrace" 
 
 "I'll thrash you till you bleed and bleed 
 Your very bones will break, and lead 
 Your young soul cut and to it feed 
 
 Till she is fed 
 The thrashing you most certain need. 
 
 Thrashed almost dead."^ 
 
 "Within your soul the man Til find 
 Or you are not your father's kind. 
 A green peeled rod may swift unbind 
 
 The soul that fights 
 And matcheth with a heart and mind 
 
 Its manhood rights." 
 
 "I won't have you the cursed thing 
 That men will spit on, hate and fling 
 Out of their noble soldier ring. 
 
 Better the grave 
 For me and mine than hear men sing: 
 
 'His boy's a slave.' " 
 
 "Be peaceful, friendly, kind to all! 
 Defend the cripples, weak and smallT 
 But front the bullies strong and talL 
 
 Stand up and fight! 
 When there is need stand to the wall 
 
 And land it right!" 
 
 "To all the lengths of honor go 
 
 To keep the peace with friend and foe 
 
 But when disho-iored, strike the blow!! 
 
stand up and fight! 
 Such men an iron fist can throw 
 Defending right." 
 
 "A boy that is a boy of mine 
 And cannot front the firing line 
 For Liberty and Right divine 
 
 I'd shoot him dead; 
 Nor would a flower of memory shine 
 
 Above his head." 
 
 "Now in your case, he'll strike once more; 
 ril watch and see. It will go soie 
 If with this high souled soldier lore 
 
 You do not sweep 
 And like a lion in his roar 
 
 Upon him leap." 
 
 Then he sat down. He could not eat 
 I saw great sorrow on him seat; 
 But something in me rose in heat 
 
 And glowed in pride, 
 And father's soul did in me beat 
 
 And mine did ride. 
 
 It later came as you have guessed. 
 I had to fight and did my best; 
 Both gave and took with equal zest 
 
 A beefsteak face, 
 That nature in a few days dressed 
 
 But no disgrace. 
 
 I see my father was a man, 
 
 A royal chieftain of the clan, 
 
 And struck for me life's noblest plan, 
 
 I've yet to see 
 Of all that in the world I scan 
 
 Man more than he. 
 
 Straight was he, level, plumb and square 
 The more a man the more laid bare, 
 A rich old fashioned soldier rare 
 
 Of nature's plan, 
 And she and Life speaks pointing there: 
 
 "That is a man." 
 
 From that far day to this one here 
 I've never known the face of fear 
 
 89 
 
But often paused and dropped a tear 
 To think how he 
 
 A double father without peer 
 Still marches me. 
 
 WHO LIVES IF ENGLAND DIES 
 
 Who lives if England dies? 
 
 She mothered first the free: 
 Did plant the royal race 
 
 All round the boundless sea; 
 Oft battled for their rights 
 
 As highest human prize; 
 Now for the world she fights; 
 
 Who lives if England dies? 
 
 For glorious Liberty 
 
 Her very king she slew; 
 Drove out a tyrant race 
 
 Brought in a freedom new. 
 Life's high immortal breeds 
 
 With Liberty doth rise; 
 'Tis' liberty life needs; 
 
 Who lives if England dies? 
 
 Stand up ye free born race! 
 
 The battle calls ye now; 
 Life doth with death embrace, 
 
 Which foot shall brand which brow? 
 If in the mighty strife 
 
 Thy country prostrate lies, 
 Can Life stand up erect? 
 
 Who lives if England dies? 
 
 Here soldiers first are men, 
 
 There men are soldiers first; 
 These two types are apart 
 
 As blest and double cursed. 
 Life beckons unto man, 
 
 The soldier doth despise; 
 Which is the type we breed? 
 
 Who lives if England dies? 
 
 There soldiers rule the man; 
 
 Here man the soldier rules. 
 War sketches their life plan, 
 
 90 
 
Life Liberty here schools. 
 Here promises and hopes; 
 
 There doubt and fear and sighs; 
 Debate, debate the case! 
 
 Who lives if England dies? 
 
 This vast and iron machine 
 
 Dynamic, wise and great. 
 Mounts heavy up the globe 
 
 To rule all life and state. 
 Should force not pass away? 
 
 Peace universal rise? 
 All peoples for her pray, 
 
 Who lives if England dies? 
 
 The best of all the earth 
 
 Are mothers of the man; 
 Most noble, kings of worth, 
 
 Who bring life's larger plan. 
 Great Liberty, the nurse 
 
 Of man unto us flies; 
 Are we Life's hope or curse? 
 
 Who lives if England dies? 
 
 The World and Life and Time, 
 
 Dreams, Visions, Joys and Hopes 
 With horror see the crime 
 
 That drenches heaven's slopes. 
 All free born breeds and clans 
 
 Stretch here their hungry eyes. 
 Each asking as he scans: 
 
 Who lives if England dies? 
 
 BALLAD OF THE "REAR GUARD" 
 
 A vet'ren soldier in the "Home" 
 
 Worn, wounded, scarred and old 
 Did nurse again the broken strength 
 
 The service hardships rolled. 
 He yet had senses keen and quick 
 
 To feel his country's need; 
 Was oft in doubt, in sorrows thick. 
 
 And oft his heart did bleed 
 To see his country fronting fate 
 And blank unconscious of her state. 
 
 91 
 
With trembling hands and bulging eyes 
 
 He read each day's report; 
 Did thuniL3 his fist, did grind his teeth. 
 
 And often fierce did snort- 
 So unprepared, such long delays, 
 
 The lack of all supplies, 
 The vast indifference that betrays 
 
 Seemed traitorous in his eyes. 
 The greed of gold, the lust of power 
 Seemed most the monsters that devour. 
 
 The danger filled his sweeping eyes 
 
 Did brood on heart and brain; 
 Fear and her somber shadows fell 
 
 On Britain's wide domain. 
 He sometimes saw and felt the shame 
 
 Of armies in retreat, 
 And better still, he sometimes felt 
 
 The virtue of defeat; 
 It seemed his country's greatest need 
 To bring the free and fighting breed. 
 
 No wonder then in such a frame 
 
 All life powers held debate! 
 And often came the stormy night, 
 
 Oft dreams that recreate; 
 Oft, oft he felt the vast desire 
 
 That youth again might aid, 
 And out of this there came the dream 
 
 That new his country made. 
 He felt the shame, his muttered word 
 His being into action stirred. 
 
 Oh Britain, thou hast been the free 
 
 And fought full many a fight 
 For thine and other liberty 
 
 On sea and plain and height! 
 But now when for thy very life 
 
 Thy passions should be white, 
 Still at thine ease, unfit for strife. 
 
 Torn by dividing blight. 
 Lift up thine eyes! Behold the foe! 
 If man to man how would it go? 
 
 Now every German in the world 
 
 Is on the fighting line; 
 The Austrian binds up his loins. 
 
 Drinks down the soldier's wine; 
 Away the Bulgar throws his fears, 
 
 92 
 
Swift rushes to the fight; 
 The courage of this later Turk 
 
 Redeems him in our sight. 
 Division now from them has fled 
 And Union leads them straight ahead. 
 
 The French are rolling back the strength 
 
 As mountains roll the tide; 
 The Romans like the Romans old 
 
 Are standing up in pride; 
 The baited Serbians louder shout 
 
 And fight until they fall; 
 The Russian now is turned about 
 
 And backed against the wall; 
 They all are allies for the fight 
 That feeds the soldier passions white. 
 
 But, Britain, Britain, where art thou? 
 
 The world doth look at thee; 
 All nations of the planet now, 
 
 Pause, look, astonished see 
 The Daughter of old Liberty 
 
 That never did betray 
 In freedom's sacred cause is cold 
 
 And laggard in the fray- 
 Great Liberty is calling: "Come!" 
 And art thou yet still deaf and dumb? 
 
 The Soul of Britain like a Queen 
 
 That rides the boundless sea. 
 High scepters o'er the wide terrene 
 
 Young nations strong and free- 
 She weeps, she weeps, she cries, she cries 
 
 For her old sons and sires. 
 The ancient spirit to arise 
 
 With freedom's sacred fires. 
 Against the wall, in bleeding need 
 She calls and calls the ancient breed. 
 
 A few state virtues most supreme 
 
 Swift hastened to the fray. 
 Heroic virtue, granite hate 
 
 Have battled night and day. 
 The man and soldier battled fierce; 
 
 Each conquered, each did die; 
 But here are none to take his place. 
 
 There others swiftly fly. 
 Here Britain calls, looks up for men 
 But none to greet her cry and ken. 
 
 93 
 
Yet here are multitudes of men 
 
 That wander round and round; 
 Young strength in whom the larger soul 
 
 Has never yet been found. 
 Large hosts of men just in their prime 
 
 Unto the strife are dead, 
 And Britian bleeding in her need 
 
 As slie has never bled, 
 And calling, thinking that the free 
 Will answer look and prayer and plea. 
 
 The dog fights of the nation's life 
 
 Are passed, and now is come 
 The one great fight that well might smite 
 
 The nation blind and dumb . 
 We now must fight for Liberty 
 
 Or for the tyrants fight. 
 Be Britain's free men as of yore 
 
 O slaves of Teuton might. 
 And Britain now can scarcely find 
 The seeing eye or thinking mind- 
 
 And some are slow and some are cold, 
 
 Some sitting at their ease. 
 And some in soul are far away. 
 
 Some struck by strange disease; 
 And some are rich and some are fat, 
 
 Some drink and drunk with wine, 
 And some are blind and some afraid; 
 
 Some traitors by design; 
 Some high and low go on the strike 
 And some to neutral nations hike. 
 
 And some by selfishness can bleed 
 
 Their country in this hour. 
 And some by blind ambitious greed 
 
 Would barter her for power; 
 And some in this tremendous time 
 
 Can dance the flowery way, 
 And some as if she were a crime 
 
 Can strip her bare and flay; 
 Some see what Fate writes on the gate 
 And still can stand and watch and wait. 
 
 One sings: "I did not raise my boy 
 
 To be a soldier man. 
 I raised him up to be a joy 
 
 And glory of the clan." 
 Oh let me hear: "Had I a boy 
 
 . 94 
 
That now disdained the fight 
 I would take him out and shoot him 
 
 Like a howling dog at night." 
 That is the song we need to hear 
 Or else descend from off the sphere. 
 
 Ye masses! Will ye dare to turn 
 
 From Life's great Queen divine? 
 Earth's highest hopes still dare to spurn. 
 
 This liberty resign? . 
 
 By all the gods enthroned above, 
 
 By devils penned below, 
 I'll march again as in my prime 
 
 To front my country's foe. 
 I feel the spirit in me burn 
 And to the ranks again will turn. 
 
 And I will call the gray and old 
 
 Though years have hit them hard; 
 The souls that faced the bayonets cold . 
 
 The rear can surely guard. 
 Now Liberty, both loud and clear 
 
 Send blasts of living sound! 
 Pour it like thunder round the sphere 
 
 And to it soon will bound 
 The old rear guard in body- broke, 
 But spirit stronger than the oak! ^ 
 
 Call all the old men of the state, ' 
 
 The broken, blind and ' lame. 
 The three score years and ten that weight, 
 
 Last ember, spark anti flame! 
 They fought in youth, they fought in prime 
 
 To make Great Britain's fame 
 And they again would rather die 
 
 Than live and wear .the shame 
 That sees their native country fight 
 And not rush up with passions white. 
 
 "All Britain's sires all round the globe. 
 
 Hark, hark! Now pause and hark! 
 Great Britain's sires, Oh let the probe 
 
 Go through ye to the mark! 
 Against the wall, now for her life 
 
 Thy country final fights; 
 She's up against it, in the strife 
 
 The foe climb up the heights- 
 Thy country calls the old 'Rear Guard!' 
 Com-e home! Come home! Let naught retard!" 
 
 95 
 
All round the world they heard the sound. 
 
 Then Instant with a sweep 
 And with an elemental bound 
 
 Unto their arms they leap. 
 Old fowling pieces, older swords. 
 
 And oddest weapons strange 
 For dateless rifles once adored 
 
 The arts and crafts exchange. 
 Upon the flood, before the tide 
 Propitious winds to England ride. 
 
 The Rear Guard with official skill 
 
 Soon formed them into line; 
 Strange ranks and arms and regiments 
 
 Were marshaled in his eyne. 
 The odd accoutrements and old 
 
 Their nervous fingers held; 
 Each face, intense and keen and pinched. 
 
 Their bosoms heaved and swelled, 
 Great Britain's oldest, rearest guard 
 To save the country pressed so hard. 
 
 The Rear Guard mounted, viewed the line; 
 
 He viewed the ranks and smiled; 
 The soldier never is deceived, 
 
 Too real to be beguiled. 
 He saw the wrecks and rags and scraps 
 
 Life's war had almost slain, 
 The blown out magazines of life 
 
 In soldier form and train; 
 j^s to the truth he was beguiled 
 He could not dream but smiled and smiled. 
 
 He then beheld the young recruits. 
 
 Resources, fire and lore. 
 Just aching, aching for the strife 
 
 And dreaming of old war; 
 All force and fire, all flare and flash. 
 
 With passions that unseal 
 The dreaming of a fierce delight 
 
 Mid shot and shell and steel. 
 He saw the young recruits so fair 
 And then the rear guards, marching there. 
 
 He saw recruits trained, marched and drilled, 
 
 Tough hardened for the fight; 
 With white steel strength their frames were bound, 
 
 Their spirits fed more white. 
 Full matched to all machines and powers, 
 
 96 
 
Upon Life's crested hill, 
 The raw recruits were granite towers 
 
 That high explosives fill. 
 He saw and measured their domain 
 Then eyed the Rear Guard's lingering train. 
 
 He saw the veterans of the fight 
 
 In action's fiercest hour, 
 In demon battles 'gainst the might 
 
 Of monsters that devour; 
 With elemental energies 
 
 And engineries and lore. 
 In elemental struggles locked 
 
 That earth and heav'n tore; 
 Then saw the worn out, wasted breed 
 Beside the nation's chosen seed. 
 
 He saw the victors from the wars 
 
 Full clad in glory bright; 
 Great Liberty was leading them 
 
 And feeding life and light. 
 Tall, noble, hard, straight, wise and strong. 
 
 Prepared again to fight. 
 And in the march he heard the song 
 
 Of full victorious "Right." 
 And then the feeble guards of age 
 Did after them his eyes engage. 
 
 He viewed again; there was his friends, 
 
 The veterans worn and old, 
 All that was in them leaped to life 
 
 But age is slow and cold. 
 Their march and dream and victory 
 
 Was just a vain pretense. 
 The valor that did death defy 
 
 In struggles most immense 
 They left it on the fields and years 
 When up they fought and crowned the spheres. 
 
 Here was a band of clergymen, 
 
 Old, bent and soft and gray, 
 Dissenters and establishment 
 
 United for the fray. 
 Such feebleness and gentleness 
 
 Might grace a country town 
 But coming up to join the war — 
 
 A breath would knock them down; 
 But not a spark the Guard could spurn 
 That on his country's altars burn. 
 
 97 
 
These artists and musicians seef 
 
 They could not stop a dog. 
 A single day of march would lay 
 
 Their strength out like a log. 
 These poets and romantic scribes 
 
 Are only in the way- 
 Mere paper fighters! Could they stand 
 
 Where razor bayonets play? 
 But all who would for Britain die 
 The Rear Guard held with sacred eye. 
 
 See these mechanics that from toil 
 
 Had long retired to rest; 
 These former delvers in the soil 
 
 Nursed on old nature's breast, 
 From sitting in the sunlight soft, 
 
 Slow dozing out their life, 
 They have come up to meet the strength 
 
 Of this titanic strife. 
 It was absurd. But who could dare 
 Reject the altar offering there? 
 
 Here doctors, lawyers, teachers old 
 
 Did leave their books and fees; 
 Gray merchants, bankers, builders gray 
 
 Forgot age and disease. 
 The old officials of the state. 
 
 White scientists of lore 
 And every worn out worthiness 
 
 Came up to join the war; 
 But none who for their country sigh 
 The old Rear Guard could dare deny. 
 
 Here come old sailors from the shores 
 
 From which they sailed so free; 
 Rough, weather beat and swaggering wide. 
 
 True sons of the old sea. 
 Our quickened pulses us deceive; 
 
 'Tis only memory; 
 They once M^ere strongest of the strong 
 
 But strength with age doth flee. 
 The old Rear Guard could not reject 
 These shadows of the once elect. 
 
 Here comes a line of pensioners. 
 Aged soldiers from the "Home," 
 
 Slow hobbling up with all their years 
 To front the strength of Rome. 
 
 Torn, broken, cripple, scored and scarred, 
 
 98 
 
And minus leg or arm, 
 Their eighty years were coming up 
 
 To Britain save from harm. 
 All, all of this immortal breed 
 The Guard made officers to lead 
 
 See yonder! By heaven! I believe 
 
 Beneath that strauge attire 
 Some women would the eye deceive 
 
 And fighting men inspire. 
 'Tis even so! These spirits sing 
 
 Their country's noblest line: 
 ♦'Who cannot fight for Liberty 
 
 Is never son of mine." 
 The Rear Guard shouted: ''Make a place 
 For this new breed. I like the race." 
 
 As thus he saw, his gathered guards 
 
 Stood plain before his sight; 
 Their glory dwindled down and down 
 
 As noonday down to night. 
 Oh what a strange and motley rank 
 
 Of all the rags of life! 
 It was a soldier comedy, 
 
 A farce to soldier strife. 
 E'en Life herself did smile to see 
 These guards against the strifes that be. 
 
 How could he lead, how could he these 
 
 March out before the world? 
 Full front the thronging multitudes? 
 
 The thrones and stations pearled? 
 How could he march to London town 
 
 And up to parliament, 
 When most of them should be in bed, 
 
 And to the "Homes" be sent? 
 It madness seemed to lead the line 
 On whom old Death had set his sign. 
 
 All up the way to London town 
 
 He saw the masses wait, 
 Jest, laughter, scorn and ribaldry 
 
 At every village gate. 
 Sarcasm, mockery, hootings flung 
 
 And sworded word and frown. 
 Denial, wrath, perhaps a curse 
 
 From thrones and high renown; 
 All this he saw and could he lead 
 This old Rear Guard to Britain's need? 
 
 99 
 
Then coming up to parliament 
 
 Before the nation's eyes 
 The Commons, Lords and King and all 
 
 Would hiss, spit and despise. 
 Great officers of war in shame 
 
 Would sweep them from the street; 
 The nation in wild mockery 
 
 Would trample 'neath the feet. 
 His guards so scattered, slain and torn 
 The ages would hold up in scorn. 
 
 He viewed them and his heart did sink. 
 
 An insane dream possessed: 
 It is a dangerous thing to think 
 
 Right through life's painted vest. 
 But on these guards there was no paint. 
 
 Naught, naught was there to mask 
 But naked eye and naked truth 
 
 That strangest questions ask. 
 In all that see, in all that think 
 The heart and hope must often sink. 
 
 Then, an infinite almighty shame 
 
 Did strike him down to earth. 
 A vaster and more mighty pride 
 
 Came up in turn to birth. 
 He flung defiance to the world. 
 
 Stood up in granite might, 
 For then another vision streamed 
 
 Like sunrise on his sight. 
 A vision that the world did shame 
 And set his spirit fierce aflame. 
 
 Upon those frames that mocked the eye, 
 
 Upon their faces lean. 
 Upon those crippled, limping lines 
 
 Was glory rarely seen. 
 The splendors from the noonday pass; 
 
 The victors were in shame; 
 And en these guards a vision rose 
 
 To crown the crests of fame- 
 And he could front the universe 
 If it were all one howling curse. 
 
 Upon each countenance did shine 
 
 The high heroic soul. 
 The spirit man deems most divine, 
 
 That time and life can pole. 
 There was the pure self-sacrifice 
 
 100 
 
That did the self disown. 
 There was the vitar keen desire 
 
 The world has never known 
 And in their eyes there was the light 
 That blinds the soldier's battle sight. 
 
 There was the age that in its youth 
 
 Had been as fierce as fire, 
 The outworn strength that in its prime 
 
 High heaven did desire. 
 There was the glory of that grace 
 
 That soldiers only wear, 
 And when for Liberty they fight 
 
 Shines infinitely fair; 
 And who could scorn when he could trace 
 The glory of life's noblest race. 
 
 This was the remnant of that line 
 
 That set the wbole world free, 
 That cradled freedom for the globe 
 
 And sent her o'er the sea. 
 They longed and longed for youth again 
 
 And on their age did weep. 
 But with their all to its last dram 
 
 Did up and forward leap. 
 Far brighter than the morning sun 
 Life's glory on his guards did run. 
 
 Exalted to the height of pride 
 
 He seemed to fill the arch 
 With a real soldier's order flung: 
 
 "To London, forward march!" 
 The Rear Guards gathered up their strength 
 
 And followed guard and guide, 
 And England's masses to the sight 
 
 Came up from far and wide; 
 They hastened to the way of life, 
 Forgot their, country in its strife- 
 
 From Portsmouth unto London town 
 
 The highway soon was jammed; 
 Soon every spot where eye could see 
 
 Was more than overcrammed. 
 The curious, gay, sight seeing throng 
 
 Without one living thought 
 Beyond the moment's merriment 
 
 Were by the strangeness brought. 
 They crowded up, a surging mass 
 The way the Rear Guards were to pass. 
 
 101 
 
Then as the soldier old had seen, 
 
 There was a world of scorn. 
 Though in some few a saving dream 
 
 Was unto honor born. 
 The mass was wild and drunk with glee; 
 
 Bach did with other vie 
 In mocking zest and biting jest 
 
 That loud on them they cry. 
 They were the butt^ the bait and bay 
 Of all the mass on that high way. 
 
 Full many a word sharp as a sword 
 
 And pointed as a spear 
 Went to the heart of each old guard 
 
 That ne'er had known fear. 
 And many a look and many an act 
 
 And worse things on them flung, 
 Not for their own but Britain's sake 
 
 Their beings stung and stung; 
 But they had come for Britain's need 
 And for themselves did lightly heed. 
 
 When up they came to London town 
 
 There was a mighty shout, 
 A most tremendous shout of scorn, 
 
 That younger men might rout. 
 But them it fed a higher strength. 
 
 Fed passion like their prime 
 And on they marched before the throng 
 
 As virtue fronting crime; 
 Scorning, mocking, swelling, smiting 
 But their spirits little biting- 
 
 The pomp, position, power and pride 
 
 Of London let a shout 
 That shook the island to its ends 
 
 And circled them about. 
 Fierce cannonades of ribaldry, 
 
 All magazines of wit. 
 Laughter and puns like rapid guns 
 
 Did turn on them and hit. 
 In jests that set the streets in roars 
 Like sunny breakers on the shores. 
 
 When near they drew to parliament 
 
 A silence seemed to fall 
 A virtuous something in the air 
 
 The mockery did appal. 
 The atmosphere and nobler sense, 
 
 102 
 
Perhaps the soul within 
 Did smite with questions most immense 
 
 The rabble, roar and din; 
 And silence fell around the line 
 As they drew near the honored shrine. 
 
 They marched right up and then re-formed 
 
 Into a solid mass. 
 The remnant of old English sires, 
 
 The class of every class. 
 "With hardly strength enough to stand 
 
 But desperate and intense 
 And with old England's ancient grace 
 
 Upon each countenance 
 They waited. Would Britain them accept 
 Or would she their old age reject? 
 
 Look yonder! The Commons, Lords and King 
 
 Are coming barehead down; 
 There's pleasure on each countenance 
 
 As glory on renown. 
 There's lightning in each gazing eye 
 
 That doth the guards behold. 
 There's something in the atmosphere 
 
 Of England true and old- 
 Hark! Hark! Did ye not hear the word? 
 The very dead might well be stirred. 
 
 "All honor to ye, nobler souls. 
 
 Who feel your country's need! 
 Ye gave your youth to make her great, 
 
 Your age for her can bleed. 
 United, Commons, Lords and King 
 
 For service ye accept, 
 And we would seek with you a place 
 
 For ye are life's elect 
 Who bring unto Great Britain's shrine 
 
 The greatest of her gifts divine." 
 
 Just then stood fo^th a mighty Soul, 
 
 Tall, noble, great and wise, 
 A spirit that the world could pole, 
 
 That could adorn the skies. 
 The great soul of the English race. 
 
 Majestic, strong, sublime, 
 Cast off the darkness from her face 
 
 And stood up pure and prime. 
 All greeted her. Applause did break 
 That both the heav'ns and earth did shake. 
 
 103 
 
That was a soul, a noble soul 
 
 That soon did silence call; 
 True spirit glory from the height 
 
 Did on the human fall. 
 To look at her the mortal rose; 
 
 To feel her was like wine; 
 Thus standing near and fronting her 
 
 Would make men grow divine. 
 And in the silence fell the word 
 That Britons ne'er before had heard. 
 
 "I am the Soul of this great State- 
 
 I lived with but one hope, 
 To build a people wise and free 
 
 And lead them up the slope. 
 And I conceived and bore and brought 
 
 And bred divine a race 
 With whom I dared to front the world 
 
 And all dishonor face. 
 The type was high, rich, strong and free. 
 The kindred of the boundless sea." 
 
 "They were the men I loved to see. 
 
 With whom I lived and wrought, 
 Forever pledged to Liberty 
 
 And never sold nor bought. 
 They were the breed the world doth need, 
 
 And I can see your sires 
 Upon mine eyes like visions rise 
 
 Such as the hour requires. 
 Earth elements, old nature's own, 
 On them I built my hopes and throne." 
 
 "Look at your sires! Behold the breed! 
 
 The like is now no more. 
 The old ancestral soul has gone 
 
 To some far distant shore. 
 For to your kind ye are not kin, 
 
 You now old Nature shelves- 
 Who cannot fight for human right 
 
 Fight never for themselves. 
 Of all this teeming boundless throng 
 None but these guards to them belong." 
 
 "I once did lead the English race; 
 
 My words were like a fire; 
 Oft, oft with me was instant death 
 
 But I was life's desire. 
 I have no people left today 
 
 104 
 
But these Rear Guards so nigh 
 Oh Island Dear! P'arewell, farewell! 
 
 I go v/ith them to die. 
 And Nature great we leave with thee 
 The memory of the race once free." 
 
 Thus said, she paused. In that suspense 
 
 The masses held their breath. 
 "Perhaps one more will join these ranks 
 
 And go with us to death. 
 There is no victory on our eyes, 
 
 We go unto our end; 
 Here Liberty and life must part 
 
 And she is still our friend. 
 The foe is strong- We scarce can try; 
 But with great Liberty can die." 
 
 Then like a gun of monstrous bore 
 
 That breaks the Sabbath chime, 
 Like mighty thunder that has tore 
 
 The azure vaulted clime. 
 Like to a resurrection sound. 
 
 That startles all the world. 
 Imparting friends a forward bound 
 
 And backward foe has hurled, 
 She shouted shaking heaven's arch: 
 •'Attention! Right about face! March!" 
 
 As lightnings from electric clouds 
 
 Doth instant flash and leap, 
 As tempests from the granite north 
 
 Come forth with sudden sweep. 
 As earthquake and volcanoes break 
 
 The chains upon their breast, 
 And ocean sends a mighty tide 
 
 Of sheer resistless crest. 
 So suddenly the plumbless deep 
 Of Britain's nobler soul did leap. 
 
 Resistless tide and mighty wind 
 
 Broke every anchor chain, 
 Did lift each up, bore all afar, 
 
 Fed every heart and brain. 
 Floods, floods of passion fierce and white 
 
 And powers and grace divine, 
 Burst into them and changes wrought 
 
 Like old enchanting wine; 
 Another Britain did arise. 
 The breed that all the world doth prize. 
 
 105 
 
That was a resurrection hour 
 
 To glory and to grace. 
 The spirit rose in virtuous dower. 
 
 Life did the birth embrace. 
 Upon each face a soul did shine, 
 
 Bach brow was briglit with flame, 
 The glowing, glowing, glowing heart 
 
 Did through the flesh proclaim. 
 The free born soul and race was there. 
 In granite power and beauty fair. 
 
 Broke one wide Europe shaking shout, 
 
 "Stay! Stay! Leave not our shore! 
 Forgive our sordid selfishness. 
 
 We were insane before! 
 We v/ere not sons of our old sires. 
 
 Not hopes for Liberty, 
 Mere remnant rags to these old guards. 
 
 Most, most unworthy thee! 
 But stay. Oh stay. Forgive! Forgive! 
 Still teach us how to rise and live-" 
 
 Then each in pure self-sacrifice 
 
 Up on the altar came. 
 The fire that did from heav'n descend 
 
 Did up to heaven flame. 
 All passions, powers and hopes supreme 
 
 Around that soul did leap. 
 Life's first and last and fierce delight 
 
 Was on her course to sweep. 
 The nation by her spirit found 
 Did circle her around and round. 
 
 Then like a high divinity 
 
 The nation to her rose; 
 Each saw the soul's affinity. 
 
 Each kindled higher glows. 
 All souls were so divinely moved 
 
 Each silent was and wept; 
 Peace, sorrow, joy and all in tears 
 
 A moment on each crept. 
 Tears of our joy, tears on our wrong 
 Doth make us great and wise and strong- 
 Then was a victor's victor shout 
 
 That shook the rounded sphere. 
 The distant foe did grit his teeth, 
 
 First touched by doubt and fear. 
 The shout of free men for their Queen, 
 
 106 
 
still shouting like the free, 
 To live and die for Liberty 
 
 ShoDk mountain, plain and sea. 
 All mothers, daughters, sons, sires 
 Marched with the old ancestral fires. 
 
 Up, up they came to the last man 
 
 Singing the song of life: 
 ''Great Liberty the world must van 
 
 Or perish in the strife." 
 Off, off they marched and on the field 
 
 Paid out the awful toll 
 The world now and again must pay 
 
 While Liberty shall pole. 
 Up, up they came! Glad, glad to give 
 The price by which the futures live! 
 
 Thus went the dream in that true soul 
 
 Upon his country's shame- 
 He saw her torn, divided, shorn 
 
 Beneath great honor's blame. 
 That dream and train in heart and brain 
 
 Cast over him a power 
 That made a day so cold and gray 
 
 A rich immortal hour; 
 And to his country's bleeding need 
 He came a true immortal breed. 
 
 The passion and its height and sweep 
 
 That robed him like a flame, 
 Those marches up the golden streets 
 
 And on the crest of fame. 
 That courtal fellowship sublime 
 
 With his brave comrades old 
 And His country's resurrection grand 
 
 Was more than he could hold, 
 And his body fell like mortal 
 And his spirit passed the portal 
 
 As great vict'ry on him rolled. 
 
 Then clad in soldier glory fine. 
 
 His medals on his breast. 
 With snatches of his storied prime. 
 
 For his last marches dressed, 
 We gathered round and read the rite 
 
 Par let the banners stream. 
 And bore him in the morning dawn 
 
 Down where the flowers teem 
 And flashing bright all saw the light 
 
 And glory of his dream. 
 
 107 
 
Then Poetry diviner sung 
 
 The glory of the spheres; 
 
 The Rear Guard to the years; 
 The Artist on his canvas flung- 
 Then Music with victorious sound 
 
 Did him forever own; 
 And Sculpture soon her subject found 
 
 Embalming him in stone; 
 And England sighing dropped some tears 
 And in her memory high reveres. 
 
 BRITAIN. 
 
 A Song of Truth to a Song of Hate. 
 
 'Tls a destined time. 'Tis the hour of fate 
 For the Gods of war close the long debate. 
 Now a Spirit wild mid the lightning flies 
 And in madness shrieks with insanest cries. 
 Now the globe's great heart is w^ith passion filled 
 And the breasts of man are with tension thrilled. 
 Now the clarions clear and the trumpets loud 
 Doth the summons fling to the arming crowd. 
 The soldiers and navies and nations shout 
 Planes and autos fly and the banners flout, 
 And in us there springs with a cosmic bound 
 An old, new, vital and thunderous sound: 
 "My Country!" 
 
 The soul that in soul is so oft asleep. 
 Too impassioned full for the flesh to keep, 
 The national soul that cur fathers great 
 In us born and bred on the fields of fate. 
 The rich memories high of the valient fight 
 When they fought vast odds for their human right, 
 And the mighty oath and eternal curse 
 They swore to the world and the universe 
 When they pledged themselves to their island Queen 
 To enthrone her high on the whole terrene. 
 That soul in our soul that is seldom found 
 Into action leaps with the quick'ning sound: 
 "Britain, Free Britain!" 
 
 We have one pure love; we have known no hate, 
 To ourselves been true and the Queen of state. 
 Though we selfish are, stained and flawed and vain 
 And have often fell from our ideal plain, 
 
 108 
 
We appeal to time and the deeds of years, 
 To the great and wise, peasant, craftsman, peers. 
 To all patriots strong, to religion pure. 
 Faith, honor and truth and the thrones secure. 
 To the heavens above and the earth and sea. 
 To all royal born and all spirits free. 
 Unto you we call, unto you appeal! 
 Are we curse or hope? Now disown or seal! 
 There is silence vast. We await the sound. 
 Now the great Soul breaks and doth pour around: 
 "Britain, Free Britain!" 
 
 All around the earth are our royal sons 
 And our royalest life in its fulness runs; 
 All the modern world we have mothered free 
 As strong as the earth and the boundless sea; 
 These United States in their flesh and bones 
 In her silence feels what she dare disowns. 
 Now the Lion's whelps with a bound and roar 
 Leap across the sea, guard the mother's doer! 
 From Canadians strong and Australians young 
 Now are armies born and around us flung. 
 From off Indian mounts and from Afric heights 
 An unkindred kin with their kin unites. 
 Hark again. Oh hark! 'Tis a victor's sound 
 That rolls o'er the sea and doth gird us round: 
 "Britain, Free Britain!" 
 
 We behold the world now anew arise 
 And a new God reigns on the azure skies. 
 As the empire stars are eclipsed and shine 
 We will take our place or our powers resign. 
 We will take our fate as the Gods decide; 
 If the Gods play just we will just abide; 
 But by Gods above and by fiends below 
 We will front the world as a single foe 
 Ere the isle goes down by a soldier state 
 That doth feed its soul on a single hate. 
 We defy the world with its iron feet 
 To this freedom tread that doth in us beat! 
 Oh arise! Arise! A tremendous sound 
 Calls the nation forth. Will she still be found, 
 "Britain, Free Britain." 
 
 When our race is run and our histories close. 
 When the state goes down to its long repose. 
 It will be a field, it will be a strife 
 As wide as the world and as vast as life, 
 
 109 
 
And the latest man, woman, daughter, son 
 In that finish fight will be joined as one. 
 More triumphant then than triumphant now. 
 With the free man's soul and his brandless brow, 
 All, encircling round our forever Queen 
 Will defy the hosts of the vast terrene; 
 And when down we go every soul will go 
 As our fathers went when they faced the toe. 
 We'll die with a song and the deathless sound 
 To the watching worlds that are list'ning round: 
 "Britian, Free Britian." 
 
 BROCK 
 
 An Example 
 
 When she, the mother of the modern world. 
 Was fighting with her back against the wall, 
 When Europe with an earthquake shock was hurled 
 And ancient thrones seemed tottering to their fall. 
 This Canada did then a soldier call 
 And found in thee the spirit she did need. 
 The odds were great, the chances lean and small. 
 But 'tis the cause that doth the soldier feed. 
 Thou stoodest forth; the flag unfurled to all; 
 Drew full the sword; a bugle blast unfreed 
 That round thee soldiers drew as but few soldiers lead. 
 
 With one bold stroke of dazzling enterprise 
 Detroit fell; then thou didst quick return 
 To guard the shores where swift Niagara flies. 
 Pride, fear and shame within thy soul did burn 
 To see the foes the armistice so spurn. 
 As they entrenched and armed them for the fight 
 Thou wert restrained, though wisdom did discern 
 A Samson's need but Samson shorn of might. 
 Peace, peace the craven, coward-hearted yearn. 
 But thou didst scorn the peace that was in sight 
 And heard and read the fire of that October night. 
 
 With galloping pace thou and thy steed did forge 
 Through night and .storm; along Niagara's bank 
 Blind plunging on, on to the height and gorge. 
 The batteries roared. Invading bands did prank 
 The farther shore to cross. Thy spirit drank 
 Her element. 'Twis life to life. Commands 
 And soldiers flew and sharp artillery sank 
 The freighted transports. Up where the raden stands 
 
 110 
 
Thou mountest quick for none could there outflank, 
 Where nature gave her powers into thy hands 
 To roll destruction down upon all hostile bands. 
 
 Thou didst survey the field. Thy batteries famed 
 So unassailable did seem, thy strength was sent 
 Below to block the landings. Thy gunners armed 
 To short and thou didst warning cry: "Sergeant, 
 Your time and distance you misjudge. Prevent 
 The waste. Try longer fuse." The words were drowned 
 In musketry and victor shouts that rent 
 Thy rear. Though palsied that a flank was found 
 Thy own hand spiked the gun, ere swift descent 
 Did chase thee down; and who can feel the wound 
 •More deadlier than death defeat upon the bound? 
 
 Defeat! Defeat! Cruel, cruel, Oh cruel defeat! 
 To thus plunge down, down driven from the strife! 
 While dragon greeds did on thy spirit eat. 
 Consuming swift the passions red and rife. 
 But oft defeat is resurrection life; 
 Another man of virtuous strength and will 
 Grasps up the sword and with a lightning knife 
 Defiance flings on Life's embattled hill. 
 So was it then. Defeat was like a wife 
 Of rugged form, but whose divinest skill 
 Brought forth the fighting man no chance of war can kill. 
 
 The enemy were planted on the height 
 In numbers, veterans, arms, supplies and place; 
 But nought can daunt the heroes of the fight 
 And nought can hurt a soldier like disgrace. 
 Up, up that steep against Fate's frowning face! 
 Up, up that steep that belches forth its ire! 
 Up, up that steep 'gainst death at every pace 
 Thou mountest up, unvanquished in desire! 
 Still up the steep, shielding thy soldier race. 
 And feeding them with passions that inspire, 
 Forgetful of thyself exposed to ruthless fire. 
 
 Thou hadst climbed up to aimost front the foe. 
 Thy uniform, sword, prominence and command 
 Made thee a mark. Thou on thy followers throw: 
 "Hold fast your fire a moment more; then stand. 
 Discharge, and rush with bayonets on the band." 
 Ere died the words a sharpened shot rang out 
 And with a flash upon thy presence grand 
 It struck. Thou saidst to those that closed about: 
 
 111 
 
"Heed not my fall! On, on for this fair land! 
 Advance to victory!" But blasts of fire did rout 
 The line without the lead that dared the odds to bout. 
 
 But there are worlds within the world of man, 
 And life is oft the opposite it seems. 
 A vict'ry and a victor's larger plan 
 Oft with a curse and vast destruction teems. 
 Out of defeat, cut of her torturing dreams 
 Another man, another virtue springs 
 And moulds the soul to far diviner schemes. 
 The blinded world that blind forever swings 
 Is full of contradiction and extremes; 
 That which we wish is always that which stings. 
 That which we most lament that which the sweetest sings. 
 
 For now upon the summit of thy prime 
 And now upon the crest of vict'ry great, 
 Fixed in a form and passion most sublime 
 Thou art an immortality of state. 
 Now thou are throned and evermore canst mate 
 The hierarchial nobles of mankind-, 
 For on that height Life struck with joy elate 
 An image high as man could wish to find. 
 There all men pause and silent contemplate. 
 Then sudden cry beneath the spells that bind: 
 "This was a royal man, a man high heaven designed." 
 
 THE SWORD OF THE FREE 
 
 Oh never a man in his passion 
 
 But a soldier within him arose! 
 And clad in man's noblest fashion 
 
 His hand round the sword did enclose. 
 Was a man ever born who could hold in his scorn 
 The soldier and sword that each other adorn? 
 
 The sword is more ancient and olden 
 Than palaces, empires and -dreams; 
 Down through all the past we beholden 
 It flashes with splendors and gleams. 
 As the meteor bright in the hand of the night 
 So flashes the sword on the spirit's delight. 
 
 The weapon has virtue and glory; 
 Is famous and noble in deed; 
 
 112 
 
Is embalmed in immortalist story 
 By men of earth's noblest breed. 
 Both the sword and the man by an ideal plan 
 For each other were made when the world began. 
 
 More polished and brighter than morning. 
 
 It is keen as a razor's edge; 
 And as strong as the steel bar forming 
 Its back and its concave wedge. 
 From her heart and her spine brought old nature divine 
 To the anvil the stuff that she tempered most fine. 
 
 As swift as a bolt when it flashes, 
 And as sure as an eagle's eye, 
 And as deep as a patriot's gashes 
 Where old traitors and tyrants die. 
 So thy strokes and thy might in the midst of the fight 
 "When the soul and the sword drink their passions' delight. 
 
 Though white as the worker can v/hiten, 
 
 Or golden as mirrors the 3un, 
 Thou art crimson as ever can dighten 
 The crimson all free spirits run. 
 'Tis thy joy and thy grief to baptize in the dyes 
 Of the tyrant's red heart when wide open it flies. 
 
 Oh hand! Did a hand ever holden 
 
 A symbol as great as the sword? 
 My passions thy handle enfolden 
 As a member once severed restored. 
 Oh clasp her and hold her! More tighter and fold her 
 With large muscled strength growing bolder and bolder! 
 
 Oh arm! Is there ought for thy swinging 
 
 So worth as the sword of the free? 
 Can scepters or wands that are winging 
 Cast spells of enchantment on thee? 
 There is naught in the earth from the grave to the birth 
 Like the sword of the free and their battles of worth. 
 
 Once more, Oh my sword, I will trumpet 
 
 The oath unto heaven and earth, 
 The oath the oppressors discomfit 
 And hastens free ages to birth: 
 "Through all time and all space, for each down-trodden race 
 On the fiercest front line I will fight in my place." 
 
 113 
 
"For thee and thy cause the divinest 
 
 I am more than a bartered slave; 
 Earth kingdoms and all earth enshrinest 
 Without thee would be but a grave. 
 Give th^ field and the foes! Give the sword and its blows! 
 Give me life, give me death and a victor's repose?" 
 
 "As standing on time's golden portal, 
 
 For ages, the ages unborn. 
 For the cause and the world's most immortal, 
 Once again is allegiance sworn: 
 To the cause, to the cause, to the cause of the free 
 I must pledge soul and sword for eternity!" 
 
 FREE BRITAIN, FREE FOREVER 
 
 When Life and Time did first create 
 
 The modern world and nations 
 An island Queen they chose to nurse 
 
 The best of their creations. 
 Great Liberty was then conceived 
 
 And born among the masses; 
 There nursed and fed and torn and bled 
 
 Through forests, wild and passes. 
 
 Straight up she grew a soul divine 
 
 And fed the island races. 
 The soul in soul oft leaping forth. 
 
 Allegiance and embraces. 
 Through these chaotic savage times 
 
 She sowed immortal stories. 
 Her body-guard with deeds sublime 
 
 Did crown her brow with glories. 
 
 In many a fierce and bloody fray 
 
 She led the stalwart masses. 
 Taught, often taught, no Britons aie 
 
 The slaves of tilted classes. 
 The people oft in battle rose 
 
 And on the thrones did trample; 
 A thrcneless throne and kingless king 
 
 The past holds up as sample. 
 
 They were the first to wage the wars 
 
 That are the people's glory. 
 Great Freedom's struggles Life embalms 
 
 114 
 
In most immortal story. 
 In every war for liberty 
 
 They are like mountain bases, 
 They bear the shock and hurl the floods 
 
 To their abysmal places. 
 
 On every shore across the sea 
 
 The life of life she planted; 
 Young nations cradled strong and free, 
 
 With Liberty enchanted. 
 Great Britain's life with freedom rife 
 
 Through all the world is sweeping. 
 The colonies with passion white 
 
 Are toward the mother leapirg. 
 
 This Britain nursed the modern worl/ 
 
 But Liberty nursed Britain; 
 On every soul unto her boru 
 
 The royal word was written. 
 To every one was fed the milk 
 
 That tyrant hatred nurses 
 And every one was fed the meat 
 
 That fronts the tyrant's curses. 
 
 Then when a hell begotten force 
 
 With war dogs fierce attended 
 Looked toward her, bellowed, broke the leash, 
 
 Leaped, raved and foaming rended. 
 What wonder that the free born race 
 
 With sweeping rush assembled 
 And heaven and earth in lightning storms 
 
 In fear and horror trembled? 
 
 What wonder that a mighty shout 
 
 Shook every quaking nation: 
 "To arms, to arms! To hell. Oh hurl 
 
 Hell's monstrous miscreation ! 
 March to the war that slays all war! 
 
 Now double strife infernal! 
 Destroy the old and endless curse 
 
 And bring the peace supernal!" 
 
 And if free Britain e'er shall change 
 
 To heart and hand of iron. 
 Another free born bid arise! 
 
 Let deadly foes environ! 
 But may my country never change! 
 
 From Liberty nought sever! 
 But as she was and is still be, 
 
 Free Britain, free forever! 
 
 115 
 
ATROCITIES 
 
 Atrocities! Abhorred atrocities! 
 Outrageous violation of all law! 
 New cannibals and new ferocities 
 The human race doth paralyze with awe! 
 The savage breeds that nature once did draw 
 Into the deep with infinitest shame 
 Rise up again, but ruder and more raw. 
 The passions old that fires infernal flame 
 Rush o'er the earth and glut their hungry maw, 
 In deeds so fierce that human nature's fame 
 And civilization's grace seems skin deep on the frame. 
 
 Why mention these gigantic crimes of war 
 As if all war did saneness not expel! 
 And demoned man demented with the gore 
 Not driven on by an infernal spell 
 To murd'rous hate and mad destructions fell! 
 War and her deeds are Reason's worst monstrosities! 
 Her time on earth makes life an unlocked hell! 
 Each hour of stay feeds blind and fierce ferocities 
 That neither God nor man can hope to quell. 
 Against high heav'n, what blasphemous philosophies! 
 Against all human kind what infinite atrocities! 
 
 But being war, why mention these profanities? 
 Some of these deeds that thou dost howl and hiss 
 As savages and brute insane insanities 
 And seek mankind to hurl to the abyss — 
 What is this noise but signs that thou dost miss 
 The rank and class all sterner soldiers know 
 And scorn to whine in deadly strifes like this ! 
 War is annihilation of the foe. 
 "Annihilate by any means ye wis" 
 Has been the law old nature doth bestow 
 And he is her best born who lays the greatest low. 
 
 Inventions that annihilations sow 
 Let genius call unto their aid to fight! 
 Old Nature court! She has and will bestow 
 The instant and omnipotent might 
 That down the foe shall sudden final smite- 
 These Zeppelins, U-boats, gases, liquid fires — 
 Oh cease this cry of women in their fright 
 And meet them with new engineries and ires! 
 Be like the breed of soldiers glowing white 
 And down Oh go, or out of thy desires 
 Another genius bring such as the need requires! 
 
 116 
 
If it be war let war be elemental! 
 Strike, strike for the foe's complete annihilation! 
 Be lightning-like, remorseless, transcendental! 
 An execution, like to this stern creation. 
 An avalanche send to its destination! 
 Wrest thou infernal sorcery from science! 
 Move heav'n and earth and sea in ministration! 
 Full open hell and bring up her appliance 
 And give or take nature's extermination! 
 Unto the old traditions hurl defiance 
 And to the new war gods pledge thou a bold alliance! 
 
 But place the bounds which rare old soldier breeds 
 Placed on the soul what time their passions white 
 Full lost themselves in elemental deeds 
 Upon the front and fiercest line of fight. 
 But could not find in their resistless might 
 The weakling's thought, the coward's deed, the base 
 Revenge and insolence of drunken power, 
 But 'gainst it all a something felt disgrace 
 And 'gainst the shame rose up in godlike height, 
 Rose up in rage and spit into the face 
 Of all the coward breeds and deeds that man debase. 
 
 War is the full incarnate life of hell. 
 The dispossession of humanity 
 Of reason and all moral sense, a spell 
 That binds the world in infinite inanity; 
 But there are crimes within the black profanity 
 All must forgive and sometimes even praise 
 And there are crimes of such insanity 
 That all the globe curse to the endless days. 
 Some of these deeds this "culture and urbanity" 
 Descend to do before the tribes that gaze, 
 Aghasi ;,nd horror-struck at their desavaged ways. 
 
 To shoot down boys and cut off both their hands 
 For being true unto their native state. 
 To slay the sex for whom all manhood stands 
 And oft on them their lusts to satiate. 
 To crucify and nail up in their hate 
 Their soldier foes unto the walls and doors, 
 To gouge out eyes and butcher hooks to weight 
 With living men and wiLh infernal lores 
 To do the deeds men tremble to relate — 
 Oh Life and Strife, man scarce believes the scores, 
 The insane, blinded hate drunk with the wine of wars! 
 
 Is this so unbelievable? Behold 
 Yon crowning act of state insanity! 
 
 117 
 
A piece of work no drunken fiend has told, 
 That stamps them with an infinite profanity 
 And seals them with inhuman inhumanity! 
 •A piece of work that did the globe astound, 
 That for a time did paralyze all sanity 
 And held the race aghast and pale and bound; 
 A moment more and rational humanity 
 Their nobler selves and their resources found 
 And thundered forth a curse of full earthquaking sound. 
 
 Oh how could men themselves congratulate 
 In plunging down into the salty deep 
 A thousand plain civilians! Oh how could hate 
 Find in her heart the passions that could leap 
 And on such deeds a jubilee so keep! 
 How could great souls their higher glory doff 
 And with the baser instincts in them sweep 
 To sink such down below the ocean's trough, 
 And on their shame and on the dead we weep 
 To justify, to honor and to scoff 
 The deep, deep, deep damnation of their vile taking off! 
 
 My Country! Eternal living Fate 
 The judgment writes on all such rankest deeds. 
 When thee and thine with actions such can mate, 
 Tlien thou wilt find from thine own marts and meads 
 The breed divine that every nation needs; 
 And thou wilt hear and thou wilt feel a curse 
 That every high and cosmic spirit feeds 
 And wrapped around and tangled, worse and worse 
 Than ever fear within the guilty breeds 
 Thou shalt descend the steep brinked universe 
 Beneath the righteous wrath all righteous souls unpurse. 
 
 Thou art a fame, a joy and hope and pride 
 Of soldier breeds in every time and place. 
 Upon thy soul and o'er thy strife doth ride 
 The magnanimity that fears disgrace 
 More than defeat or insult to the face. 
 Thou lov'st in friend and doth admire in foe 
 Nobility and virtues that embrace 
 Soul honor as the noblest end we know. 
 E'en in thy bloody battles we can trace 
 The trampling of the savage fierce below. 
 The emergence of the man, the best the earth can show. 
 
 When thou canst think such mad dishonoring deeds, 
 When human greatness runs so low in thee, 
 When honor's soul cannot sustain the breeds, 
 
 118 
 
And thee and thy great soldiers hence must be 
 The scientific savages we see, 
 Then let the right omnipotential hand 
 Such guilty lift unto infinity 
 And swifter than all heaven's swift command, 
 And cursed as is a brute divinity 
 Hurl as a hell contagion to the land 
 Down, down the mighty gulf the whole supporting band- 
 
 My Country, "with all thy faults I love thee still!" 
 Though sense and selfishness and guilt I see 
 And feel ashamed when on some heaven hill 
 I look above and then look down on thee; 
 But when I look on this humanity 
 And see the souls that doth each nation ride, 
 Behold the naked spirits they unfree. 
 The types of men and man-ideals that guide, 
 My blood doth burn; soul rises up in me; 
 I hear great songs; the great globe I bestride; 
 A free man of the free, in honor, strength and priae. 
 
 DUNG 
 
 Oh War, dread War! Dark, dark prolific curse! 
 Survivor of the long eternal strife! 
 The parent soul that doth forever nurse 
 Black murd'rous hates against the heart of Life! 
 Thou tramplest down, thou plungest deep thy knife 
 Into the soul of every human hope. 
 In spite of all time's changes rich and rife, 
 In spite of man who struggled up the slope, 
 In spite of all ideals sorrows wife 
 Thou risest up, blaspheming heaven's cope 
 And feedest all the race thy deadly deadly dope. 
 
 Full drunk with wine of darkest inspiration 
 The ancient beasts within these humans rise. 
 Man is transformed, a cursed incantation 
 Makes savages and brutes of monstrous size 
 And by the spells infernal energize. 
 Drove as by hell, insane or madly stung. 
 With fierceness hot and fell ferocious cries 
 All have themselves upon each other slung 
 Till mangled dead in slaughter round them lies. 
 Great Life and Hope and all unto them sprung 
 Cry on the insane scene: "Dung! Dung! Just common dung!" 
 
 119 
 
See these high forms, the high high forms of man, 
 The God erect, the hopes that earth doth nurse, 
 So rich endowed unto a cosmic plan 
 And marched unto a cosmopolitan verse — 
 Now see them brought before this blasting curse 
 And cheaper than the breeds of savage tongue, 
 And vainer than the shadows that immerse, 
 And ruthless as old Nature ever flung, 
 And quicker than the lightning can unpurse. 
 And worthless as the beasts around them sprung. 
 The royal race of man, dung, dung, just common dung! 
 
 These spirits vast which hope brings unto birth, 
 Potentials rich the world doth travailing nurse 
 Out of the black and blind chaotic earth 
 To victory and virtue o'er the curse. 
 These solar souls that splendors bright disperse 
 And wear the robes that heaven on them hung. 
 They strike the eye, a god they rich unpurse. 
 They tower and shine as from immortals sprung. 
 And front the height of this vast universe; 
 But war makes man the vilest ever sung. 
 All that he is and does, dung, dung, just common dung!" 
 
 Life brings them forth in anguish torturing pain, 
 She treasures them beyond all treasures bought, 
 Doth feed and clothe, guide, nurture and sustain 
 And gives all strength that they be virtuous taught- 
 All art and skill and craft is in them wrought 
 And out of nature's chaos blind and stung 
 They bring the cosmos Life has ever sought , 
 These civic states, and high in heaven hung 
 Prophetic dreams unto the future's thought. 
 Then see it all in blindest slaughter flung; 
 Mankind, his world and work, dung, dung, just common dung! 
 
 Life brings them forth and Oh the joy divine 
 When e'er is found a spirit strong and great, 
 A thinker and an an actor with design 
 To carve and build the nobler virtuous state! 
 These souls are sent the world to elevate 
 And bear the gifts to which the heavens clung; 
 The geniuses still in the world create 
 The worlds divine that are or e'er are sprung 
 And lift mankind to meet and match and mate; 
 But consternation upon our eyes is flung, 
 The geniuses of life, dung, dung, just common dung! 
 
 120 
 
Great man that crowns these travailing evolutions 
 The man that thinks these systems of ripe thought, i 
 
 That round him builds these glorious institutions 
 Of social life and visions he has caught 
 From heaven's thrones and unto mortals taught, 
 Great man and all the greatness from him sprung, 
 The hopes, and dreams with life and passion fraught. 
 The nobleness that sorrow out has wrung. 
 The honor and self-sacrifice so sought. 
 The crest and crown that life has ever sung — 
 Behold! Behold! Behold! "Dung, dung, just common dung!" 
 
 Dung! Dung! This great humanity naught but dung! 
 A product rich just brought to fertilize 
 The barren earth and in the furrow flung 
 Like vilest things whose swift decay supplies 
 Another life that in earth's bosom lies! 
 The very race from whom the heav'ns are sprung. 
 The form divine from which the thinkers rise, 
 The hearts and minds so grandly great when stung, 
 The consciences with god within their eyes. 
 The passion white and dreams so glorious sung — 
 Behold! Behold! Pehold! "Dung, dung, just common dung!" 
 
 Oh man. Oh man! When unto reason wed, 
 When wisdom ripe and virtue in thee streams^, 
 From out and into heaven thou art led 
 And far behind and far before there gleams 
 Faith, hopes and joys and sunlike, golden dreams. 
 Then thought must think that this mortality 
 Is but a mask that veils a master's schemes, 
 And earth and birth a mere portality 
 To being high and empire that redeems, 
 For thou dost pass in high courtality 
 To this vast universe, to glorious immortality. 
 
 But when, Oh Man we see thee in thy strife, 
 When thou art plunged and passionate in war. 
 When thou art armed with lightning bolts and knife 
 And slaying all, thyself as red in gore 
 As butchery and slaughter ever wore. 
 Then by despair Life is most deadly stung, 
 V/isdom and truth are trampled as of yore, 
 Hope is torn forth and far with curses flung, 
 And night is poured on all celestial lore. 
 Then Life and Time must sing as often sung; 
 "Dung, dung, just common dung! Dung, dung, just common dung!' 
 
 121 
 
"Nature, thy hand again put to the plow 
 And shove the shear down to the granite rock! 
 From end to end of ancient empires now 
 Turn down the dead that all the ages shock! 
 With them into that fertile bosom lock 
 Some few ripe seeds of life's diviner state! 
 With this rich cosmic fertilizer frock 
 The vital germs and out of them create 
 Another world whose human kind shall flock 
 Around great Peace and harvest from our hate 
 The rich millenial dreams the ages long to mate! 
 
 DRAGONS. 
 
 Within earth's passioned, palpitating breast 
 A spirit lives and forms the plastic mass. 
 Power, life and thought in all ephemera dressed 
 Reveal some soul that these but faintly glass. 
 
 At epic points she mounts the spheres 
 
 To note the progress of the years; 
 
 All, all the past unto the hour 
 
 Doth pierce and test with lightning power, 
 
 Forever looking to that light 
 
 That sunlike shines upon the height. 
 Blind life and thought, at times she doth not grope, 
 Stands forth like Reason's soul and views the world with hope. 
 
 Long ages past, when dinosaurian forms. 
 Repulsive monsters of gigantic might 
 Did people earth, and bred tempestuous storms 
 Around them fierce as tropic stormy night, 
 
 Upon the scene she rose to see 
 
 What was and from it what might be. 
 
 The earth was all one blinded brute! 
 
 As was the root so was the fruit; 
 
 Great nature's forms on land and flood 
 
 Was all one strife, in death and blood. 
 She sighed and sighed upon those births of time: 
 "Just dragons, dragons, dragons! Just dragons in their slime!" 
 
 Again she rose. Huge monsters had no place. 
 
 Another form rose with erected shape. 
 
 Just languaged and beginning to uncase 
 
 Those mighty powers transforming man from ape. 
 
 Fierce was he as the beasts of yore, 
 
 As naked, hairy, hungry, sore. 
 
 122 
 
She faintly smiled. There was a hope 
 That out of this a soul might grope, 
 And language nurse the thought and dream 
 That in her far off heart did gleam; 
 But sinking back she murmured her old rhyme: 
 "Just dragons, dragons, dragons! Just dragons in their grime!" 
 
 Again she rose. The shape erect had thought; 
 Prophetic lights were shining in his eyes; 
 Great cities rose; new arts were learned and taught 
 And gardens, fields and flocks and herds they prize. 
 
 She more than saw. It was old strife 
 
 Though in the masquerades of life. 
 
 Men fed on men. It was the past 
 
 In new deceptive figures cast. 
 
 Straight from the monsters of the flood 
 
 The world had left a path of blood. 
 She sighed and sighed and sorrow filled her rhyme: 
 "Just dragons, dragons, dragons! Just dragons in their prime!" 
 
 Again she rose. Earth was a royal sight, 
 
 Ships, railroads, towers, schools, churches, light and thought. 
 
 Great humans with a towering front and height 
 
 On nature rode and vast inventions brought. 
 
 'Twas our own age, the modern world 
 
 With hope's prophetic flag unfurled, 
 
 But Wealth and Liberty and Science 
 
 Each other blast with death appliance. 
 
 Some thirty millions mangled, dead, 
 
 And life on blasting curses fed! 
 She Avept and wept, slow sinking back in time: 
 "Just dragons, dragons, dragons! Just dragons in their crime!" 
 
 THE MAN WITH THE PUNCH 
 
 The world is crying loud for men; 
 
 The times do suffer need; 
 Life looks abroad with anxious ken 
 
 And calls the ancient breed. 
 The earth is fat and full of things; 
 
 Shake, shake the sleeping bunch! 
 Spit on and kick him till upsprings 
 
 The man that has the punch. 
 
 The present prophesies an age 
 
 Of might and man and deed; 
 Great Life unto the daily page 
 
 123 
 
A hero's dreams doth feed. 
 The giants are in battle bound, 
 
 The knotted passions crunch. 
 The strong old fighter must be found. 
 
 The man that has the punch. 
 
 The preacher, editor and scribe, 
 
 Mechanic, farmer, lord, 
 Whoever leads this modern tribe 
 
 Must bear the oldest sword. 
 Earth is a chaos rich and rife, 
 
 See nature on the hunch! 
 And he alone can stand the strife, 
 
 The man that has the punch. 
 
 A man can always stand up straight. 
 
 Can face the world and fight. 
 On cowards Life doth send the weight 
 
 Of avalanchic night. 
 Forego the court and choose the camp; 
 
 Feed on the hardest lunch. 
 Oh covet nature's finest stamp, 
 
 The man that has the punch! 
 
 Feed heart and brain with dynamite; 
 
 Hard double up your fist; 
 Gods, angels, men and devils fight, 
 
 Though scorned and howled and hissed. 
 When man to man they dare to fight 
 
 The dust the cowards munch 
 But he is still the lord of life. 
 
 The man that has the punch. 
 
 THE SOLDIER'S STYLE 
 
 "You don't like my style; 
 'If you don't like my style 
 Just stand out of my way,' 
 As the cannon balls say 
 To the soldier's file." 
 
 '■No! I don't like such talk; 
 It always makes me balk. 
 A something in me lies 
 That such talk bids arise." 
 
 124 
 
*'Then, get right in my way; 
 A granite man at bay 
 Vv/'ith sword of keenest steel 
 Who bids me come and feel. 
 Is more my like, I say, 
 Than standing from the way." 
 
 *'Well, I don't want to fight; 
 But you're both wrong and right. 
 Ccme, let us reason, pray, 
 About the right of way? 
 
 ''Friend! Sit there on the fence 
 And lean your legs from thence 
 To me safe side! Such men 
 My soldiers would not ken 
 From dogs. His is the way 
 Who moves unto the day." 
 
 A SONG OF PEACE 
 
 I stood -upon the Campus square 
 
 And watched the surging masses there. 
 
 The toiler, trader, wise and fair, 
 
 All full of life. 
 Approaching then fair Peace I saw, 
 The Soul that doth the ages draw 
 And buildeth order, justice, law. 
 
 In spite of strife. 
 
 The gath'ring masses did admire 
 Her figure, carriage, grace, attire, 
 And loud applause from hearts of fire 
 
 Did upward bound. 
 High, high she towered; her hand outspread; 
 The fleshly garments off she shed; 
 A spirit scarred from toe to head 
 
 Called silence round. 
 
 "I am not such as oft I seem; 
 
 Oft oft, am clothed as like a dream 
 
 And called: 'The Hope of Life Supreme,' 
 
 'Her long desire!' 
 But underneath this raiment fair 
 When inmost being is laid bare 
 Ye see the scars that now I wear 
 
 Of sword and fire." 
 
 125 
 
"I was born out of all the times, 
 
 All struggles, striies and wars and crimes. 
 
 All ages, changes, countries, climes, 
 
 To this estate. 
 All honor, virtue, justice, law. 
 Religion, reverence, faith and awe. 
 All that I am and all I draw 
 
 Strife did create. 
 
 "All vict'ries oi the fading past. 
 The social order round us cast 
 And future conquests coming fast 
 
 Are fruits of war. 
 The ideals must engage in strife 
 To find the virtues of their life 
 And from their struggles high and rife 
 
 Make soul from lore." 
 
 "The martyrs are life's living seed; 
 The patriots are a royal breed; 
 'Tis sacrifice that life doth need 
 
 And makes her great- 
 He who beholds a nobler goal 
 And for it 'gainst the greeds that roll 
 Can plant a world defying soul 
 
 Builds man and state." 
 
 "So. oft 1 hear the voice of Life 
 
 Pierce through all curse and noise and strife. 
 
 Cut right in soul as like a knife: 
 
 'Stand up and fight!' 
 For country, friends and home and wife, 
 Thy children, sires and thine own life 
 Before the lightning sworded knife 
 
 Stand up and fight!" 
 
 "For liberty, the right to be 
 
 The chainless, brandless, fearless, free. 
 
 The glory men rejoice to see. 
 
 Stand up and fight! 
 For Liberty, the Queen divine 
 Who made brutes men, men rich and fine 
 And life a draught of godlike wine. 
 
 Stand up and fight!" 
 
 "War is a curse but peace is. curse, 
 Far vaster, deadlier and worse. 
 If in man's heart it doth impurse 
 Devouring greed 
 
 126 
 
That sings and prays and sighs for peace 
 While selfishness has free release, 
 And, though life's glory, doth decrease 
 Man's royal breed." 
 
 "Of all the cries man should abhor. 
 Of all the dangers life deplore. 
 Of all the curses that can sc^re 
 
 This is the worst. 
 The cry for 'Peace' at any price. 
 The ignorant, insaae advise 
 That wars increase aud maliie man thrice 
 
 And more accursed!" 
 
 *' 'Gainst Popes and presidents and kings. 
 
 And Henry Fords, cabals and rings 
 
 That want the peace and curse that clings 
 
 Stand up and fight! 
 Against this masquerading peace 
 Thai selfishness and greed release 
 And must this hell again increase 
 
 Stand up and fight!" 
 
 ''Against the peace that bears the fruit 
 That ripens from hell's deepest root, 
 Transforming God and man to brute. 
 
 Stand up and fight! 
 Against the peace that leaves old war 
 Still in the heart and holds the lore. 
 Stained or unstained with murd'rous gore 
 
 Stand up and fight!" 
 
 "Give Life the peace that cuts the curse 
 Out from the heart that doth it nurse 
 And hurls it down the universe. 
 
 Forever down! 
 Give Life the peace that is her life 
 That heals her wounds and stills her strife 
 And gives her as the bridal wife 
 
 That songs renown!" 
 
 "Give, give the peace for which she prays 
 Through sorrows, tears and sighs and lays, 
 That sing and beckon down the days 
 
 Beyond all strife! 
 "Give, give the peace, the living peace 
 The heav'ns alone to earth release, 
 That time shall ever more increase 
 
 With love and life!" 
 127 
 
" 'Gainst doctrines arming friend and foe 
 That Roosevelt and his followers sow 
 For future harvests full of woe, 
 
 Stand up and fight! 
 'Gainst 'Preparation' that has nursed 
 This greatest war the world has cursed. 
 From which again new hells will hurst 
 
 Stand up and fight!" 
 
 "For that great, noble, longed-for state 
 That Taft and Lowell would create, 
 A court where nations meet and mate 
 
 Stand up and fight! 
 For that high international dream, 
 That cosmic, climbing, saving scheme 
 That makes a fact life's wish supreme , 
 
 Stand up and fight!" 
 
 "As long as this old globe shall roll 
 Life must pay man and blood in toll; 
 For every step to being's goal 
 
 Pay out her best. 
 But let her pay; the price is cheap 
 If from the strug-gle she shall reap 
 The larger purer soul asleep 
 
 Within her breast-" 
 
 "May Life grow wiser, free and great! 
 May man with dreams and visions mate! 
 May both be based on wisdom's state. 
 
 And loined with right! 
 May law, religion, learning, art 
 Grow with and rule all mine and mart 
 And nurse the soul, but never bart 
 
 The power to fight." 
 
 She ceased. Her wisdom silence bound 
 
 A moment, then a thunder sound 
 
 Did gird the speaker round and round. 
 
 Did rise and fall. 
 Then slow and calm the warrior Maid 
 Again her peaceful robes arrayed 
 And round the Campus slowly strayed 
 
 Surveying all. 
 
 128 
 
THE BATTLE OF BROOKLYN 
 
 Oh Liberty I Oh Liberty! We turn 
 With pleasure, pride and passioned exaltation 
 To thee whenever thou dost rise and spurn 
 Thy bitterness and bondage-degradation 
 To battle for thy right and domination. 
 Oh spirit great, most glorious and divine 
 Of all the earth, thou art an inspiration 
 To man and life. Thy passions pure as wine 
 They gladly drink like powders of new creation. 
 With tension tight the old, old fighter fine 
 Comes up and with a rush jumps to the fighting line. 
 
 I love the sounds of battle. I delight 
 To see thy presence on the field. I leap 
 To life and drink the recreating might 
 Of glorious strife. I pant. I snort. I sweep 
 Into the conflict and plunge into its deep. 
 Is it a choice 'twixt Liberty and war? 
 Then be it war! Still war unto the steep 
 Of heav'n, and war, war, war down to the floor 
 01 hell, and all between a mountain heap 
 Of dead and oceans vast of living gore! 
 'Tis Liberty or death forever, ever more. 
 
 And thou, my Country! Liberty's best home! 
 Republic great upon the rights of man! 
 If thus the passions rise and swell and foam 
 At all old tales of Freedom and her clan. 
 Should not I rise and in the distance scan 
 Thy trav'ling strife with Europe's old oppressions 
 That did abhor the New World's higher plan? 
 The fathers called for justice and redressions; 
 Great Life was glad and did the passions fan ; 
 In conference they discussed the prime transgressions, 
 Then sudden, proud, erect, they rose with new possessions- 
 
 These colonists along the fierce Atlantic 
 Turned from the war with Nature, rough and wild. 
 To face another. The tempest storms gigantic 
 Swept o'er the land and darkness round them piled. 
 They saw, a moment shrank, then reconciled 
 The settler donned the soldier's uniform. 
 Which was old Freedom's glowing soul that smiled, 
 And calm defied the mighty fears that swarm. 
 The frontier men came forth; the towns outfiled 
 In strength; and thirteen states against the storm 
 Did guard each fort and hill amid the lightnings warm. 
 
 129 
 
While scorning far her colonists so raw 
 At Bunker Hill the great delusion broke, 
 And England with a sudden, fearful awe 
 Came, staggered, fell 'mid thunder, fire and smoke. 
 This sphere to new life-consciousness awoke 
 And with a strength that prophesied the years 
 Back on them flung the tyrant's cursed yoke 
 And drove them blind with madness, shame and fears. 
 As they reviewed a curse they did invoke. 
 And measuring more the manhood of these spheres 
 Did gather larger force and planned to fight their peers. 
 
 New York was then, as now and long must be. 
 The center of all hope and firm resistance. 
 Within her streams far Washington did see 
 The coming foe and Brooklyn sent assistance. 
 Soon, soon they came- Far gath'ring in the distance 
 A mighty fleet came on to awe the shores, 
 To find a base and threaten the existence 
 Of young life. The fortress from her scanty stores 
 The center and the shore guards with insistence. 
 But leaves far east a path with open doors; 
 So scanty were her men and large her spreading floors. 
 
 Wise Putman dressed the fort and southern height 
 And half his strength to each he sorely broke. 
 Each half again was stationed left and right 
 To shore and center path to meet the stroke 
 That Tyranny on Liberty did invoke. 
 Ten thousand twice Howe landed on the shores 
 Against our ten fierce rebels to his yoke. 
 The Hessians kept the center-south and stores; 
 Grant led the west with Highlanders of oak; 
 Cornwallis quick the country round explores. 
 Hears of Jamaica's path and its unguarded doors. 
 
 The plans were sealed. On a deceptive night 
 Lean strategy struck for Jamaica's road. 
 In unseen, silent, secret, subtle flight 
 The lengthy mass softly and slowly strode. 
 Slow dragging forty cannons as their load. 
 When morning broke the vet'rans gathered rank 
 And officers and men with spirit glowed. 
 On an unconscious foe they had the flank 
 And vict'ry thus almost in full bestowed. 
 With confidence the victory they drank 
 And moved upon the lines along the wooded bank. 
 
 130 
 
Twice, twice the force moved up to the attack, 
 With spreading nets along tlie west and east 
 Round Sullivan who kept the Bedford track 
 And now too late awakes. The victors feast 
 To see success so brilliantly increased. 
 They draw the nets. They still reserve their fires. 
 Now is the time. Upon them they released 
 The heavy charge advantage always sires. 
 The Hessians strong, a shamble-boughten beast. 
 Signed from the north charged with the fierce desires 
 That certain victory and long delay inspires. 
 
 Disordered quick, the patriots saw all lost- 
 Some fierce discharged their arms. The deadly walls 
 Close round them without hope. Some boldly tossed 
 The gauntlet down and courted death that calls. 
 Then Sullivan, as those on whom fate falls 
 Called swift retreat, but too late to avail. 
 Some few broke off into the forest halls; 
 The center held still fiercer fires assail; 
 Some swear a curse on tyrants and their thralls; 
 Then on the lines whose bayonets did them hail 
 They rushed the heavy south to die or to prevail. 
 
 The strength that dared this new untraveled world. 
 Faced savages and felled the forests old. 
 Their musket barrels seized and nature hurled 
 Them fiercely on. Down on the Hessians rolled 
 A desperate few, despising bayonets cold; 
 Down, down they came and many instant fell. 
 But some stood up and brute destructions sold 
 Around. The elemental passions swell 
 And mighty axelike strokes with swingings bold 
 Sunk on that line. The super-human spell 
 That falls on Freedom'si sons when driven to rebel. 
 
 Rose up in them and drove them on like fire. 
 Down sweeping with momentum from the height 
 They plunged sheer in, like Samson blind in ire 
 Smote left and right. The passions glowing white 
 Did instant, desperate and remorseless smite 
 Resistances that clog and close the path; 
 But strengthened, numbered, interlocked with might 
 The veterans stand. New life is in the bath 
 Of blood when hope gulps down the sweet delight 
 Of vict'ry. The force that battered nature hath 
 Rose up within the foe and wrath encountered wrath. 
 
 131 
 
still fighting on they pushed that center back 
 And taught again these colonists could fight. 
 Now they themselves returned upon their track, 
 Then forv/ard plunged and swayed both left and right. 
 As like a swollen river at its height, 
 A gath'ring wave strikes plumb the curbing tall, 
 When suddenly with passions foaming white 
 The piled up stream sweeps down and does appal, 
 So then that revolutionary might 
 
 Broke through the strength that did around them wall; 
 A remnant mere escapes and many prisoners fall. 
 
 Meanwhile brave Sterling kept the path near shore 
 And fed his men the wrongs that did them bite. 
 'Twas time the first that Liberty e'er bore 
 The organized Americans to fight, 
 To fight for man, for independent right. 
 Democracy and hopes that on her wait. 
 With kindness cruel, assurance and delight 
 She took the chance and scorned the loud debate, 
 For such a strength a new world did invite. 
 Against the men earth's strongest men can mate 
 She set them up in line and on them laid her fate. 
 
 The sun had started toward the hour of seven 
 When all the fleet that lay along the shore 
 Let loose her fiercest cannonades of levin 
 And on the fields sent forth a thunder roar. 
 Why? To hold all minds from that far eastern door. 
 Then Grant and his strong Highlanders did break 
 The tension tight and 'neath strategic lore 
 Fierce opened fire. The outposts answer make 
 And summons help against advances sore. 
 They fought and fought and fell back to the stake 
 As greater numbers pressed and their defence did rake. 
 
 The posts their last position but gave way 
 When Sterling with two thousand untried men 
 Supported them and held the foe at bay; 
 And more than held, for down on them unpen 
 Resistances America till then 
 Did never need, and never forth did call; 
 But now against the strength of rock and glen 
 Came up and stood a bulwarked breasted wall 
 Of patriots keen that dared the fiercest ken 
 Of veteran lines, resources, arms and all 
 That raw, raw soldiers green with reason might appal. 
 
 132 
 
They stood their ground 'gainst more than double force. 
 And if some sank beneath the heavy fire 
 A cliarge they sent upon such deadly course 
 As Death himself the blast did sight and sire. 
 They stopped advance; cooled quick the hot desire. 
 Gave passion pause, taught them another lore, 
 And drank the breath the battle doth inspire. 
 The minute-men with musketry of yore 
 Mark never missed but sent destructions dire: 
 The loss they gave and added to the score 
 As confidence and hope did new their bosoms store. 
 
 Once fire baptized upon the battle front 
 They seemed to rise to higher strength and height 
 For every man would bear the burdened brunt 
 And on the first and fiercest line would fight. 
 Oft, often did the swift, impetuous might 
 Sweep out of rank and in their very face 
 Amid the shot on its uncertain flight 
 Cast on their flag the crimson of disgrace. 
 Those highlanders, great England's war delight, 
 Found they were up against the ancient race. 
 Against another man old nature's passions lace. 
 
 Now on the west, then on the farthest east. 
 And more than once against the center line 
 They would mount up. The veterans more increased 
 With numbers and with ordered valor fine 
 Would drink the hope of victory like wine. 
 But place and race and fire swift answering fire 
 Did beat them down, down from that famed incline. 
 Again disgrace and valor high aspire. 
 Again they dare to mount with dark design, 
 And once again a smaller host retire, 
 And once again a shout that rises high and higher. 
 
 The sun had climbed to eight, to nine, to ten. 
 For four long hours the enemy they stay 
 And drove them back, although the veteran men 
 At every point did battle to make way. 
 Resource, ambition numbers, desperate play 
 Were stopped and stayed, were humbled, bent and bowed 
 By Life's green hopes on that uncertain day. 
 Nor was it strange the victors shouting loud 
 Derision rolled and did the veterans bay- 
 The strength of war, far famed, boasted and proud 
 Went up against the stop, were stopped and stayed and cowed. 
 
 133 
 
But hark, Oh hark! What is that distant sound? 
 What strange report upon the patriots' flank? 
 Along the height it sends an awe profound 
 And stills the shouts along the victors' rank. 
 All look behind. On them it casts a blank 
 Astonishment and instant seems to slay 
 The victor hopes that did that summit prank. 
 Again there was confusion and dismay 
 And their high hopes below the plummet sank. 
 It was the sound of doom upon the day; 
 The victors in their rear upon them sudden play. 
 
 Cornwallis from his victory did run 
 To strike the foes upon the shore and height. 
 On Sterling brave as on brave Sullivan 
 Was strategy and swift, resistless might. 
 It were insane to stand up to the fight, 
 And death to yield unto the prisoner's fate. 
 It were a loss to Liberty, black night 
 Unto the cause, on the new state a weight. 
 And deep disgrace on Life's divinest right; 
 Worst, worst of all, it were a murderous hate 
 
 On his young soldiers true to pause or hesitate- 
 Then was a brief and burning half an hour; 
 A sacrifice and glory to behold; 
 A passioned scene of valor, feat and power 
 That Life and Time and poets rare have told. 
 To save men to annihilation sold 
 The Scot commands the most part to retreat. 
 Whole he himself and kindred spirits bold 
 Their courses keep o'er stream and marshy peat. 
 They took their stand 'gainst odds most manifold, 
 A chosen band in a position meet; 
 
 'Twas crimson, crimson life and passion white with heat. 
 
 Quick action then; the British poured in fire; 
 There was a rush, an elemetnal shock; 
 Old England and America in ire 
 Shook to the deep, in deadly conflict lock. 
 The globes of man down to the granite rock 
 Rose up and fought. Shame, anger, fear and might 
 That chosen few most ruthless did unfrock. 
 Fierce poured the shot; swords struck the living sight; 
 But there they stood and did all progress block. 
 With many slain, the living fiercer fight 
 As their companions crossed the stream with blood bedight. 
 
 134 
 
For half an hour the fugitives passed o'er; 
 For half an hour the English on them dash; 
 For half an hour the handful 'gainst them bore; 
 For half an hour shot fell and bayonets slash. 
 Though shot and hewn with many a fearful gash 
 They fought and fought upon the piling dead- 
 Into the teeth that did upon them gnash 
 These heroes struck with passions fierce and red 
 And kept the stream through which their comrades splash. 
 Though some sank down into the watery bed 
 Most crossed the marshy creek and to the fortress sped. 
 
 Again, again, again, and once again 
 They did repulse Cornwallis from the way. 
 Though every time a higher toll of men 
 Upon the field as dead and dying lay. 
 But every time they instant did obey 
 And fewer few rush to defend the place 
 And dare the guns the British on them play. 
 Time and again they dared the veterans face 
 And on their own the slaughter fierce did stay. 
 Even the foes admired the hero race 
 Of that vicarious fight and sacrificial grace. 
 
 Of that fierce, final, pathway-blocking strife 
 Oh give the honors where they most belong! 
 From Maryland a regiment of life 
 Round Sterling stood against the victors strong. 
 Her fresh green hopes, a generous youthful throng, , 
 Stood up with him as seasoned soldiers fight. 
 Took blindest odds and dared the mighty wrong- 
 Though fiercest fires and bayonets did them smite. 
 But though from them, there rose a glorious song 
 Of battle front, of valor, fame and mighty 
 It could not save the day from dark defeat and blight. 
 
 Defeat! Defeat! Cruel, cruel. Oh cruel defeat! 
 The first stand-up for independent state, 
 The "Declaration Great" and life replete 
 With liberty and this decree of fate 
 That strength and hope almost annihilate! 
 Defeat! Defeat! The first high passions white 
 With mighty dreams of glorious estate 
 And victories that doth the eye delight. 
 Before the strength of tyranny and hate 
 Stormed, stormed and drove from off the double height 
 And victors and their dreams plunged into darkest night! 
 
 135 
 
Defeat! Defeat! Cruel, cruel, Oh cruel defeat! 
 Life's bosom bare, warm, bleeding, pierced and torn. 
 And to her dying lips with dregs replete 
 A cup that death hath from her presence sworn, 
 And falleth back upon her bed of thorn! 
 Defeat, defeat, defeat and brutal plunder 
 Fed on thy life and tramped ye down in scorn. 
 While darkness black and lightning flash and thunder 
 Broke on the cause as storms upon the morn! 
 Oh Time and Life! How is it ye can sunder 
 Frcm virtue its desert and plunge both down and under? 
 
 Defeat! Defeat! Cruel, cruel, Oh cruel defeat! 
 Oh Liberty, there's no defeat like thine! 
 There is no cause that makes man more complete. 
 Sets us on fire and feeds celestial wine. 
 And then to drink the dregs and dross of brine! 
 How happy hence, thrice happy are the brave 
 Death wrappeth in a soldier's glory fine 
 And flowers immortal plants upon his grave! 
 How infinite the patriot's rest divine 
 And memory blest when man is but a slave 
 And Liberty and Life his mortal pathways pave! 
 
 'Tis not in man, in demons or in gods 
 To breast the force and win against the fates; 
 But when for Liberty they take the odds 
 Impassioned song their memory celebrates. 
 No victory sustains and satiates 
 Life's hungry heart on its immortal quest. 
 But virtue high that fierce annihilates 
 All tyranny, and in the bosom blest 
 Great Liberty eternal consecrates; 
 For life in such is ever self-possessed 
 And without such insane however highly dressed. 
 
 And such were ye on that disastrous day! 
 The spirit of thy life was high and free. 
 And prophecy and splendor round did play; 
 But all abroad, all down the earth we see 
 Life ever slain by Time's tyrannic "Me." 
 Resources, numbers, vet'rans, arms and skill 
 Are luling powers where nature's battles be. 
 Though purer fires the nobler spirits fill 
 Great nature knows no virtue and no plea. 
 The patriot's, prophet's, martyr's blood doth spill; 
 The beasts and foes of life possess and crown the hill. 
 
 136 
 
But there are worlds within the world of man 
 And life is oft the opposite it seems. 
 A vict'ry and a victor's larger plan 
 Oft with a curse and vast destruction teems. 
 Out of defeat, out of her torturing dreams 
 Another man, another virtue springs 
 That moulds the soul to far diviner schemes. 
 The blinded world that blind forever swings 
 Is full of contradiction and extremes. 
 That which we wish is always that which stings; 
 That which we most lament that which the sweetest sings. 
 
 Death and defeat, shame, bitterness and scorn. 
 Ye were the seed that mighty Time did fling 
 Into the furrow. The harvest to be born 
 Was riper far than poets dared to sing 
 When dream and song soar on archangel wing; 
 For out of ye sprung Liberty immoi"tal, 
 A state where man is greater than a king, 
 A greatness, magnificence and courtal 
 Majesty of life, a glorious ring 
 Unto the generations o'er the portal. 
 And high prophetic hopes above the dreams of mortal. 
 
 Ye were the sacrifice by which we live; 
 Thy blood was shed man's right to full redeem; 
 Thy hate and love unto us thou didst give 
 And now it flows in this strange mingled stream. 
 The memory and the ancient virtue seems 
 At times run out, but there are other times 
 A spirit wakes and with sublimest dreams 
 High, high above the world in passion climbs. 
 Full, full of rich and ripe prophetic schemes — 
 It is yourselves still mounting to your primes 
 Where Liberty and Life eternal music chimes. 
 
 Now Liberty and Life are throned sublime 
 In this new sphere, and their enchanting song 
 Is singing hope unto the hosts of time. 
 And in the strain are notes so passioned strong 
 They fire the soul and bear it swift along 
 Till man is lost and finds himself in line 
 When ye around great Liberty did throng 
 And poured for her life's consecratest wine. 
 Immortal mortals, enthroned above all wrong! 
 Ye are the men Life loves to call "divine;" 
 Forever more your forms upon her eyes shall shine- 
 
 137 
 
Ye fought and fell. Now this expanding nation, 
 This dominating power for coming ages, 
 This courage, conflict, conquest and creation. 
 Though spellbound as the future high engages. 
 Whene'er they pause and read the golden pages 
 Which we have wrought, the history so inspires 
 The glorious strife within the bosom rages 
 And honors that all heaven still desires 
 Are hung on ye unto the endless ages. 
 We are the sons of most immortal sires 
 And in our bosom yet the fathers' glowing fires. 
 
 Ye Stars and Stripes! Redemption of the night! 
 Defense and hope to all the bondaged world! 
 Though vastly changed unto the outward sight 
 'Twas here your folds were first with joy unfurled. 
 Here planted firm; here fiercely on thee hurled 
 The foes; here the raw colonists despised 
 Around thee fought and with the battle swirled; 
 Here was the hour that thy fresh folds baptized 
 In blood and death; here thou wast blindly whirled 
 From off the field and with defeat surprised; 
 So crown, Oh crown these heights so grand memorialized! 
 
 And you, ye spirits of these thirteen states 
 Stand up again in your colonial guise; 
 Though all is changed by that which new creates 
 Ye still survive and higher still must rise! 
 Behold the rich wide hemisphere that lies 
 Beneath the skies ye made forever free, 
 And this new race of vast gigantic size 
 Wage other wars with strife and tyranny! 
 Look forth, look forth! Stretch your expanding eyes 
 To north and south and far unto the sea! 
 Had ye such dreams of state as now before ye flee? 
 
 Ye later soldiers! Ye hosts that shake the globe! 
 Ye mod'rns v/hose machines unmake as man! 
 Whose monster guns and science powers disrobe 
 The world's high civilizations as we scan, 
 Behold this breed of nature's oldest plan! 
 One round of shot; a forward rush; then hand 
 To hand the great old struggle they began. 
 Against the wall of fate the patriot band 
 Would plant themselves before oppression's clan: 
 "Come on! Come on! We'll take the odds and stand." 
 Such soldiers here have fought. Show us a better brand! 
 
 138 
 
Oh city vast I Beneatli thy very feet they fought. 
 But time and change obliterate all trace. 
 The hero souls that plain and common wrought 
 Scarce memory leaves to their succeeding race. 
 T^ause on thy course! With memory now repace 
 Thy country's lore from thy far pioneers! 
 A change! Surprise! What crimsons so thy face?. 
 That yon? A battle field- It plows the spheres 
 Of man! Into it! Thy fathers there embrace 
 Their fathers who have fallen with the years. 
 Break out, Oh city, break, and shake the earth with cheers! 
 
 Great Uncle Sam doth on the Eagle ride 
 And each alike for freedom ever strives. 
 At every shrine though change and progress hide 
 They open up the lore that memory hives. 
 Upon these heights and shores a something rives 
 The present from the past. The glorious strife 
 Is lived again. The remembering Eagle drives 
 Against the foe with elemental life, 
 And Uncle Sam tears off the oppressor's gyves 
 From his young soul. A flame and lightning knife 
 Lead on the fiercest line against oppressions rife. 
 
 And ye, ye cosmopolitans of power 
 That master, march and rule the course of time, 
 Moulding the globe with scientific dower, 
 Like and unlike the World-Soul's dreams sublime, 
 Ye far extremes to this man's scale and clime 
 Come face to face! Ye are the son and sire. 
 His world is past and is to thee a mime; 
 Thy world is here; both it and thou inspire; 
 But under all is manhood pure and prime- 
 Art thou a man? Respond unto the fire 
 That planted, fed and fanned thy best divine desire! 
 
 And thou, thou age and coming age of splendor, 
 Of wealth and lore, magnificence and power! 
 Exalted Life with glorious train attender 
 No dreamer dreamed when dream looked from her tower 
 Forget thou not the first immortal hour 
 When they fierce fought tO' set the whole world free, 
 Slew old chaotic monsters that devour. 
 And struck this plan as prophets only see. 
 Forget thou not what did them most endower 
 And is the best thy fathers gave to thee 
 And let a brighter flame unto their memory be! 
 
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Upon mine eyes there streams a cloud of vision; 
 It sweeps across all majesty and splendor. 
 The mighty world feels something of derision 
 As the vast mass swings round her as attender. 
 Allegiance swear and blind throng as defender. 
 'Tis Liberty, great Liberty divine! 
 And round are guards that never knew surrender, 
 The real "Old Guard," best types of life's design. 
 Renew their oath and service ever tender. 
 Behold the breed ! Now ever on her line 
 The fighters, founders, fathers with her own glories shine. 
 
 Oh City, State, great Nation and the World, 
 There still is hope where e'er such virtues be. 
 Though man and life by tyrants new are whirled 
 The future high doth beckon unto thee. 
 Stand up! Stand up! Be strong but be more free! 
 The free alone life's larger doors can ope. 
 What now we are, whatever great we see 
 Is but the fruit of Freedom's deadly cope. 
 Feed thou the flame! Pledge life to liberty! 
 Line with the few! Stand up on plain and slope! 
 Fight, fight for Liberty and give the future hope! 
 
 BELGIUM 
 
 In this vast day of mighty strife 
 When heav'n and earth and man and life 
 And nature with resources rife 
 Wield against each the lightning knife 
 Keep safe 
 
 The mem'ry of a noble state. 
 Small, trampled down, despised by hate, 
 But chosen as if chose by Fate 
 To keep life's hope inviolate, 
 Belgium. 
 
 Who dared time's brutal giant chief, 
 A robber state, colossal thief. 
 To honor lost, to hell a fief? 
 Who dared her past the world's belief? 
 Belgium. 
 
 Who saved the hope of this wide world, 
 The flag that Liberty unfurled? 
 
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Who stemmed the storm when wrath was hurled 
 That life and man and all imperiled? 
 Belgium. 
 
 Who held old Europe's freedom gate, 
 Held brutal hordes of savage hate? 
 Defied a thousand times their state 
 And gave the world an hour of fate? 
 Belgium. 
 
 Who stayed a iiell ambitious power 
 Whose hungry greed would all devour, 
 A strength that did to heaven tower? 
 Who stayed her one short, vital hour? 
 Belgium. 
 
 As noble as the dauntless Three 
 Preserved old Rome so Europe ye. 
 Ye showed the world types of the free 
 That feeds the earth her life and glee, 
 Belgium. 
 
 As brave and fearless, strong and wise 
 As time e'er saw and man must prize. 
 Your last born soul did instant rise 
 And on the fiercest front line^ dies. 
 Belgium. 
 
 Though ye are slain, your land a dearth 
 Now almost blotted from the earth, 
 Thy state has now another birth, 
 An ideal of immortal worth; 
 Belgium. 
 
 As long as men shall sing the song 
 Of free souls in their passion strong 
 Triumphant might shall feed the throng 
 To see thy right before their wrong, 
 Belgium. 
 
 Forever at the world great Y 
 Where free men for the world did die 
 A monument soars to the sky 
 And from it lightning strikes the eye, 
 Belgium. 
 
 From here and hence round every coast, 
 Around the shrine men honor most. 
 
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The free enfranchised, brandless host 
 The glories of thy name shall boast; 
 Belgium. 
 
 Then let the temples of old fame. 
 From portal, dome and tablet flame 
 The splendors of that glorious name 
 The world hosts hence greet with acclaim, 
 Belgium. 
 
 At each high season of great time 
 When nations chant in songs sublime 
 The DOwers that nursed them to their prime 
 One name supreme shall ride the chime, 
 Belgium. 
 
 If when the allies win their aim 
 The victors crown thee not with fame 
 The world's great soul will write in flame 
 Their infinite eternal shame. 
 Belgium. 
 
 TO MY SOLDIER SONGS 
 
 Go, my "Soldier Songs," to the soldier's life, 
 To the struggles fierce of remorseless strife! 
 'Tis a world of greed and a course of war 
 With a daily bath deep in tears and gore. 
 
 It is self and greed that is life's chief end; 
 On the sharpest sword she doth still depend. 
 And the life of man though life's highest prize. 
 Is as cheap as dirt ihat beneath her lies. 
 
 What is then is song in the mighty curse 
 Though the camp and sword doth its being nurse 
 When the powers that drive the eternal urge 
 Mingles man and life in an endless dirge? 
 
 Know your own defects are your own worst foes 
 And your own best friend in your own heart glows! 
 Know the elements deal with the elements true, 
 Give an instant death or the honor due. 
 
 Go, my "Soldier Songs" to the soldier strife! 
 If ye feed the camp with a throb of life 
 
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Ye will be a joy and will go your way 
 As the victor.s go from the battle fray. 
 
 Go, my "Soldier Songs!" If ye cannot feed 
 The impassioned heart of the soldier breed, 
 There is no debate, ye deserve the fate. 
 Ye are only dung for the songs they wait. 
 
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