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ECHOES 
 OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Br 
 
 EDWARD GRUSE 
 
 Author of "Poems," "Songs and Talcs," etc. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 THE GORHAM PRESS 
 
 MCMXVIII 
 
Copyright, 1918, by Edward Gruse 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 MADE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
 The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 
 
 NOV i8 i9l8 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 To the Statue of Liberty 7 
 
 The Call 21 
 
 The Broken Bow 31 
 
 The Exodus 40 
 
 Time's Burst of Dawn 42 
 
 Forsaken 45 
 
 The Desert Land 47 
 
 Butterflies 50 
 
 The Unknown Realm 51 
 
 Famine 52 
 
 Which? 53 
 
 To France 54 
 
 On the Recapture of Jerusalem 55 
 
 To Harney Peak 55 
 
 The Snow Fall 56 
 
 They Shall not Pass ! 56 
 
 To the Thrush 57 
 
 To the Moon 57 
 
 To the Eagle 58 
 
 Out of the Old 58 
 
 In the Cold 59 
 
 To Venice 59 
 
 Old Glory 60 
 
ECHOES OF DEMOCRACY 
 
TO THE STATUE OF LIBERTY 
 
 What golden light yon garnishes the waves, 
 Gilds with soft, velvety touch their foaming crests 
 And o'er their ebbing flows like molten gold, 
 Fresh poured o'er water lilies' undulating leaves? 
 See how the radience casts its burning beams afar 
 And leaps o'er billows to the mariner's sight, 
 Leaps like forked lightning from the moonless sky, 
 Illuminating with its sudden fire. 
 The path of swollen rain cloud o'er the parched 
 
 land. 
 What star has newly risen from obscurity? 
 Emerged from nebulous mists of magic voids, 
 Shot forth from infinite recesses of unawakened 
 
 dawns? 
 Of old long-bearded prophets told of such d light. 
 Of which the Lord oft whispered in their spellbound 
 
 ears. 
 By feathering on their ear drums with a stellar ray, 
 Or tapping on their anvils with the moon's bright 
 
 silver beam, 
 Or by the sunset's splendor in the W^estern zone, 
 When gorgeous hued clouds wooed the somber- 
 footed night, 
 Trailing her dusky garments o'er the flowering vale? 
 And scattering fragrance from her dewy folds, 
 Awakening a thousand slumbering harmonies 
 Which but awaited for some signal key, 
 When they burst forth in full tumultous melodies, 
 Awelling up faint whisperings from that bourne, 
 7 
 
8 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 They oft petitioned, but could never fully know. 
 The palsied poor, exchanging their last mite for 
 bread. 
 Grabbed without thanks by greedy, cold, close-fisted 
 
 hands 
 Dreamed of a light, which would illuminate, 
 The parsimonious nook in selfish minds, 
 And show them they are hoarding here, 
 That which is least accredited in heaven, 
 And leave untouched, rose tinted pearls, gems with- 
 out price. 
 Bright with tlie hue of heaven's lustrous smile. 
 Downtrodden generations, with a million wrongs, 
 To curse the tyranny, which tread them down. 
 Prayed that some such a spark may permeate 
 The darkness of black machination's cloud 
 And kindle mercy in the despot's stony heart. 
 Now time has brought thee from its hoarded 
 depths 
 Unlocked by persecution and by blood. 
 Shine! Pierce the gloom of an enslaved world, 
 Pierce interlunar reaches of primeval night, 
 That Night mare's vampire may not hold us thrall. 
 Thus are fulfilled those centuries of dreams. 
 Which lead that hero, weighted with the thought 
 Of unknown kingdoms slumbering unrevealed. 
 To brave the perils of unnavigated seas. 
 
 Light ushered in the new world to the old 
 world's e\es, 
 For to the admirals' gaze, the alien shores 
 Swam with the beacon that would ever be 
 The emblem of the world's democracy. 
 
Echoes of Democracy 
 
 Oh bursting dawn of all the dawns of time' 
 Then hundred men rushed to the deck half-dazed, 
 Men, wan with hopes long lost, 
 Stought men, gaunt, tempest-tossed. 
 Men, who in those weeks crowded fateful years 
 Men, gray from days of wild, demoniac fears, 
 Men, tortured with the wracking, haunting dread, 
 That they would glide from ocean's uttermost 
 
 bound, 
 Into abysmal chasms, where powers no more 
 Impelled the winds to breathe upon the spheres, 
 Drove suns to gyrate in their intrenched orbs, 
 Which now glared swooning on stale, stagnant seas. 
 Where gaping space itself would gasp for room 
 And time could turn the emptied glass no more. 
 
 How breathless, mute, they stood, 
 Eyes straining for a glimpse of land, 
 Conjecturing what bewildering wonders new 
 May be enfolded in the rosy lap of dawn 
 When she unrobed herself unto the blushing East 
 Unbosoming her secrets to that rising orb. 
 Who with one regal glance ubiguitous 
 Dissolves the fairy fabric of night's magic web 
 And on the forehead of awakened morn 
 Emblazoned there a million-jewelled crown. 
 
 Ah how they blessed their fearless admiral then. 
 How they carei^sed him in transported joy. 
 How they exalted e'en the hem of his salt-laved 
 
 gown, 
 From which beamed haloes of divinity. 
 But yesterday in frenzied mutiny, 
 In wild delirium of a mad despair, 
 
lO Echoes of Democracy 
 
 They seized him with loud cries, "Overboard!" 
 Now seemed he some miraculous wonder-working 
 
 seer, 
 Some prophet towering o'er their minion minds, 
 Who safely piloted their perilous pilgrimage. 
 Through shark-teethed waves and through sea ser- 
 pents' crushing coils. 
 The admiral stood there silent, while the tears, 
 Through which thought cast the first world-wide 
 
 surveying glance, 
 Showed by their rainbow hues what in his bosom 
 
 swelled. 
 While through his surging veins there pulsed again 
 The ghosts of struggling years and poignant pangs 
 Of harsh rebukes gnawed at his heart once more. 
 Here was the dream that he so long had dreamed; 
 Here was the light that lit his clairvoyant soul; 
 The light that wise men mocked, that ruler? ridi- 
 culed ; 
 The light that would enlighten future worlds, 
 Embellish thrones to which he bowed unheard. 
 Now will they hold his name in hateful scorn ^ 
 Will school boys hoot him on the street? 
 Will old men spurn him as he passes by? 
 Will learned men denounce him as a lunatic 
 And churchmen shun him as a heretic? 
 
 He'd show them who possessed the mad man's 
 brains ; 
 He'd shou' them why he stood a towering mountain 
 
 peak 
 Amid the taunting jeers of fellow countrymen. 
 Who lived in costums old as time is old. 
 
Echoes of Democracy II 
 
 On liim as on the lofty mountain peak 
 
 God smiled and whispered eons of subjected truths. 
 
 And who can clip the wings of soaring truth? 
 
 Entomb it in a vaulted sepulchre, 
 
 Or laugii out its existence by a thick-lipped laugh? 
 
 Its shorn wings feather out in fuller plumes. 
 
 It spiings like lightning from confining tombs 
 
 And plants chagrin on laughter e'er the echo dies. 
 
 No ruthless barbarism can trample down its fanes, 
 
 No superstition banish it by dungeon gloom 
 
 Or by the torturous fire of the stake. 
 
 How wondrous welcome that prophetic light 
 Streamed on those sails from earth's far hemisphere. 
 First greeting of the new world to the old 
 And in that greeting beamed a world's new morn. 
 For ages slumbering in dark ocean's arms, 
 It lay there like a giant, fondled child. 
 Petted with many a soft, caressing tide. 
 And soothed by the gentle lappings of the bays, 
 And many rivers spread their silvery streams 
 Over the verdant bosom of her plains, 
 Embellishing them with their forked winding ways. 
 Full many conjured cloud from vaporous caves 
 Created in the airy dome of space, 
 Refreshed the inland prairies with their summer 
 
 showers, 
 As if the ocean wished to revel in such charms alone 
 And leave the savage with his dozen tribes. 
 Chase down the wild beasts there forevermore 
 In endless wilderness of wood and plain. 
 
 What recompense did flattering reward, 
 Snail-footed dispenser of rosy promises. 
 
12 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 Pour round the brow of this uncrowned adventurer, 
 
 This bold discoverer of unknown worlds? 
 
 I'he sword, impatient with its keen edge sheathed, 
 
 Cuts itself into popularity with its own edge. 
 
 Clipping the laurels with the selfsame blow 
 
 That forged its undisputed might in power, 
 
 Accomplishments of mind, reserved and shy 
 
 Must wait until the superstitious, wary world, 
 
 Rutted in customs, old as thought is old, 
 
 Wakes up an opes its eyelids to the dawn. 
 
 And tears away the veil of darkness with which she 
 
 Enwraps herself to hide her childish fears 
 
 From the mysterious working of the miiverse, 
 
 Which she not knowing trembles at and fears. 
 
 Uplift the world with altruistic soul, 
 
 And slow-winged fame comes perching on your bier, 
 
 Tickle men's minds with cheap chicanery 
 
 And you've won instant notoriety. 
 
 Old world rank with your foul diplomacit^s, 
 Jealous of faintest breath of liberty, 
 Which like a breeze on flowers may make their hues 
 Eager to shed their fragrance on more spacious 
 
 fields, 
 Or like unopened hearts, touched by sweet mercy's 
 
 hand, 
 Unlock their chambers to the soft, uplifting light. 
 Old world, which thrust this daring soul in chains, 
 Who for you sails unfurled and found new worlds, 
 This act was e'er the birth of liberty, 
 For through tlie echoing valleys loud it rang, 
 From river's marge it echoed wrathfully, 
 And from the sheeted water of the lake 
 
Echoes of Democracy 13 
 
 It rolled back to the leafy forests "omber depths, 
 That never more in all that stretk'* of shore, 
 Could tyranny set foot with its enSxuving chains. 
 
 No sigh of bondage finds enraptured voice 
 In breath of breezes blowing o'er free lands, 
 Where scoffed at freedom, raises scornful frown 
 From tcndcrest flowers, flushed with fragrant hues. 
 The slumbering hills rise in volcanic rage 
 At slightest shadow of oppression's cloud, 
 Transforming sunlight to the lightning's fire 
 And roar back with wrathful thundering. 
 The vibrant echoes to the valley's depths, 
 Where not well domiciled in paradisical haunts. 
 Rolls o'er the plains an exile's haven to find, 
 But snatched up by the whirlwind's scornful might 
 And torn to tatters by its furious blast. 
 Seeks refuge in the forest's verdurous gloont. 
 Where murmuring boughs whispering words of 
 
 scorn. 
 Send it chagrined forth from its shadowy bowe's 
 And to the ocean piloting its riddled wings, 
 Finds that its ceaseless roar, forevermore. 
 Is but the groaning of a vanciuished exile's tomb. 
 
 Oh endless winding valleys, gorgeous vales, 
 Where blessed tranquility startles at the breath 
 Of violets' evening fragrance on the breeze. 
 Illimitable forests wild, where no ear hears 
 The deer's swift canter o'er the autumn leaves; 
 Where giant mountain peaks befriend the moon 
 And with their belts of glacier, chain themselves 
 To earth to keep their sublime poise among the 
 clouds. 
 
14 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 Oh land of thousand streams let loose from hills 
 
 That they might make the jointed wheat grow tall 
 
 And put in apple blossoms brighter hues ; 
 
 Oh trellised mossy bowers, where the mocking bird, 
 
 Consummate melodist of startling airs, 
 
 Charms mid-day breezes into silence by the trill 
 
 Of amorous love songs bursting from some hidden 
 
 bough, 
 Beneath whose shaggy arms, the opening flowers 
 Fill all the leafy dells with fresh perfume. 
 Oh later Eden, how triumphant in democracy, 
 How blissful in unconscious liberty. 
 
 There are the endless rolling prairies, like 
 An untamed sea with its once surging billows stilled. 
 For ages frozen in their last upheaval, mute, 
 But glorious in their static, congealed state. 
 Still rippling o'er their brows, luxuriant grasses 
 
 green, 
 Dance to the West wind's soft susurrant monody, 
 And on the sunlit slopes, knee-deep in meadows 
 
 wide. 
 The herds browse peacefully on luscious grass 
 Or filled, lie down through sultry heat of noon. 
 While like a fairy host the clouds sail by 
 Borne on the pinion of their magic wings 
 And cast cool shadows o'er the heated land. 
 
 Ye teeming plains, cut with the plow's deep share 
 As the wild main is plowed by liner's prow 
 And crossed by many furrows here and there 
 As fields were laid out by the pioneer. 
 There ripening grain lifts high its golden head 
 Or bows down gently to the treasured load. 
 
Echoes of Democracy 15 
 
 There reapers clatter in these waving mines of gold, 
 And lay the 3ellow sheaves on stubbles glowing in 
 
 the sun, 
 While bare-armed gleaners with perspiring brows 
 Heap up the long rows in the sultrj' harvest heat. 
 And on the gathered sheaves, the silent bree/^e 
 With arms full of fragrance lies asleep. 
 The tasseled maize gleams there row after row, 
 Now half-aslumber in the bright, unclouded sun, 
 Then gently tossing its awakening arms 
 It rustles blandly in the passing gust. 
 
 Breathed from the shaded valley, where the groves 
 Sway round the farmstead in their summer glee. 
 Foul famine with its jutting eyes and hollow cheeks 
 Will never flap its skeleton wings here, 
 Nor ragged want reach out its skinny hand 
 Hiding its tattered scandals from men's sight the 
 
 while. 
 Like massive clouds far-pillared against the sky. 
 The mountains, basking in the sun's majestic beam 
 Rise in their stern, colossal sublimity. 
 Their giant shoulders wrapt in purple clouds. 
 Which sift their glistening snows upon their hoary 
 
 heads 
 And crown them on their bleak, eternal thrones, 
 With crowns of silver studded with bright stars. 
 Sublimely towering in propitious heavens at times, 
 Then when the lurid lightning cleaves the livid sky 
 Ri\ing the air with sudden burst of flame. 
 And leaps from peak to peak in fitful rage 
 And echoes of wild thunder are thrown back 
 From cliff to cliff with prolonged resonance, 
 
1 6 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 Thej' stand their fierce conductors of the storm, 
 
 AVith magic baton, lengthening out this flash 
 
 Or checking that, or making that loud peel more 
 
 loud 
 And muffling that one with their Titan hands. 
 Giant guardians of earth's housed treasures they, 
 Coal in whole plains make floors on which they 
 
 stand, 
 The silvery seams hold down their mantle'^" folds 
 And glowing gold bejewels their hidden hands. 
 Beyond the mountains, oceans with their cease- 
 less roar, 
 Forever battle with the unrelenting shores, 
 Rolling their billows round the stubborn cliffs, 
 Or piling up vast sand-bars in their unquelled rage. 
 As if enangered that unmovable earth 
 Should fix a limit to their boundaries. 
 Broad streams, like silvery serpents, glide 
 Through fertile plains and o'er the rolling prairies 
 
 wild. 
 And brooks enfringed with mossy coolness and the 
 
 breath 
 Of violets slumbering on their sedgj' brinks, 
 Lose their soft windings in the thicket's maze. 
 Now calm the sea, now stirred by whirlwinds' might, 
 Its bosom ruffles in the storm's wild sweep, 
 And dashing spray against the darkened sky 
 Fierce wrestles with the anger of the winds 
 As if to show beneath its glassy depths 
 Hot fury lurks, when once its wrath is roused. 
 AVhat mighty fleets plow through the parting foam, 
 Flowering their pathway with its lily hues; 
 
Echoes of Democracy 17 
 
 What endless cargoes back and forth across its 
 
 bosom pi}', 
 Unload their stores and load up waiting freight 
 
 again. 
 Ten thousand sails bound for all marts of trade, 
 Ten thousand laden prows returning to their ports 
 
 again. 
 Beside the shore the nation's pulses throb, 
 Those feverish hearts hot beating evermore, 
 And with their ceaseless moil, a busy hum 
 Of thousand industries fills all the air, 
 The wheels of which but murmur "on and on." 
 Here flows the treasures of the snow-capped hills. 
 Here gathers all the riches of prairie empires, 
 Here pours the wealth of teeming, fertile plains, 
 And once transformed by magic processes, 
 By magic mills turned by invisible fairy hands 
 Is sent broadcast again in manifold form.s. 
 From deep-delved stone the malleable iron flows. 
 From flinty ore streams forth the mellow gold, 
 From the sheep's fleece the broad cloth fibre glows. 
 And from the worm's woven cocoon, 
 Is reeled the silk that rustles in the princess' gown. 
 Oh fitful feverish hearts, forever wake. 
 Forever throbbing as if on your pulse 
 Hung destines of uncreated worlds. ^ 
 
 O'er all this vast dominion, blessed Liberty 
 Unfurls its banner's folds, unsullied to the breeze. 
 The mountains, massive and majestical, 
 Look from their watch towers on the emblem's hue. 
 And check the arm of frightful insolence 
 Before it leaves its ugly imprint there. 
 
Echoes of Democracy 
 
 The plains and prairies wave their groves and 
 
 grains, their grass 
 In adoration of the bright unquenchable light! 
 The valleys echo paeons in its praise, 
 Borne on the amorous odors of fresh fragrance 
 
 mild, 
 While clouds in exultation flash forth fire. 
 And loose the thunders from their cavernous abodes. 
 Stern voice of heaven in approval loud. 
 
 Triumphing hymning loud above discordant 
 
 chants ! 
 Oh how delightfully j'our echo falls 
 Upon delirious ears of an awearied world, 
 Like glorious chant of nightingale to him who comes 
 Home from lone wandering in Sahara sands. 
 Oh light, which never wanes! Oh wondrous beam' 
 How sweetly falls your lustre on the upward 
 
 looking eye, 
 As precious as some sudden bursting beam 
 Through dusty crevice of a dungeon wall, 
 To him who lanquishes on its dark floor, 
 As welcome as the land, which dawn upheaves 
 To shipwrecked sailor's dim, despairing eye. 
 
 The world beholds the light for lo, they come ! 
 The beam restored the sight to blinded eyes, 
 Long hooded by dread spectres of a tyrant's wand. 
 A seething horde, a motley throng they come, 
 Oppressed fugitives from land of heartless Czars, 
 Where despotism says the word and life is stilled ; 
 Broad-shouldered Teuton, whose humanity 
 Has long been sacrificed on altars of a soulless 
 
 state ; 
 
Echoes of Democracy 19 
 
 The sun burned denizens of Southern climes 
 From whose dark eye soft romance loves to peer 
 On unexpressed love-intrigues but new dreamed ; 
 And stout men of the bleak and frozen North 
 On whose broad brow adventure sits with plans of 
 
 new exploits. 
 Smiles play upon their lips with bright uplifting 
 
 beam, 
 As round thcni pour the odorous fragrance of free 
 
 aris. 
 A hundred races here, brush elbows in the crowd, 
 Gaze in each other's eyes and feel at home. 
 
 And may those tiger passions, which in their 
 
 home land, 
 Ongoaded by oppression's prod, gnawed at their 
 
 heart 
 And sought a vent by some revengeful stroke, 
 Some mad act of infuriated minds. 
 Be blown back o'er ocean and from salty depths, 
 Snapped up by shark teeth and there find a grave, 
 Or by the weir-wolf in his weedy lair 
 Crouching for chances to feed fury more. 
 Barbarian instincts wild ; fierce traits of savagery, 
 And serpent looks of sinister dealings foul, 
 And vandalism's fell, unquenched lust. 
 May they be chained to the embarking shores 
 Ne'er to sink poisonous fangs into our budding hopes. 
 Thus thou great Goddess, brushing the blue skies 
 With thine eternal arm upheld aloft. 
 So that mankind may see thine ever shining beam, 
 Which with electric sparkling lights the world, 
 Art the glad light for which the prophets prayed, 
 
20 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 Light which stars envy on their diamond thrones, 
 Pouring their radiance forth to make thy lustre dim. 
 The veiled moon, half-hidden behind clouds. 
 Fearing to lose its beaming in thy brighter beam 
 Shows not its brillliance, while thy full flood flows, 
 For coeternal with the sun thou art, 
 Since it's the darkened world thy radiance doth 
 
 illume. 
 Shine! Pierce the gloom of an enslaved world! 
 Show lustful kings how hatred's gnashing teeth, 
 May be unfanged by gentle touch of love, 
 How swords no more may leave their sheath? for 
 
 blood, 
 And how a thousand years of peace may come. 
 
Echoes of Democracy 21 
 
 THE CALL 
 
 I looked on earth's green pastures and the soft, 
 Luxuriant splendors of the golden valley's mellow 
 
 haze, 
 Diffused like new burned incense o'er their verdant 
 
 depths; 
 The lofty grandeur of the snow-capped peaks 
 Bare forehead, round whose dreamy temples hang 
 Caressing wreaths, wove by the fingers of the wind ; 
 The sober sound of seas, forevermore 
 Resounding round bare, bleak, immovable cliffs, 
 Which push the mad waves back with Titan hands 
 Or battling roar, while fleeing from the hurricane's 
 
 wild might ; 
 The stretch of streams through broad, illimitable 
 
 plains, 
 With liquid voice attuned to rustling of the corn 
 Whose rootlets feed upon their limped bays. 
 And to the sighing of the sunlit grass, 
 Which, decked in green, smiles on the water's blue, 
 Thrilled me with adoration for the glories of this 
 
 world. 
 Inspired me with the wondrous possibilities of life. 
 
 I saw the roses blushing to behold 
 Their tints reflected in the moon beam's silvery 
 
 smile. 
 And tender violets abashed to feel their blue 
 Kissed by the balmy lips of dewy airs, 
 Immaculate lilies bless the new-born breeze 
 That shook the dust from off their ivory leaves. 
 
22 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 I heard the thrush pour forth his golden notes 
 Unto the gorgeous splendor of a sunset sky, 
 Melodious music blending with harmonious hues. 
 The wondrous mocking bird charm with its 'Strain 
 The climbing moon from out a curtaining cloud. 
 Oh peaceful earth ! Triumphant mother of ex- 
 ultant life, 
 Serene as thine own slumbering lakes in which the 
 
 hills 
 Lave their hot feet the sultry summer long; 
 In which the gnarled oaks for centuries 
 Have watched their branches wrestle with the wind 
 And sprinkled acorns round the pebbly brink ; 
 In which the passing cloud looks with a flattering 
 
 eye, 
 High-housed aloft on unseen pinnacles of air 
 And pauses to arrange its shaggy, wind blown form ; 
 In which the moon casts down each night its maiden 
 
 beam 
 To see if it has waned the long day through. 
 
 But as beneath the slumbering surface of the 
 ■ sea 
 The savage shark, plows through its salty depths 
 Blood in his eye, death gnashing from relentless 
 
 teeth. 
 As deep beneath the petals of the fragrant rose 
 The ravenous worm blights its fresh budding bloom, 
 As into starlit folds of quiet flocks 
 While sleep has spread its poppy on the shepherd's 
 
 brow 
 The fierce wolf leaps with murder raving on his 
 
 foaming jaws, 
 
Echoes of Democracy 23 
 
 So in the heart of civilization's ripening flower, 
 A fiend, while slyly sipping of its honey dew 
 Was burying its poisonous fangs unseen 
 Producing cankerous growth upon the very bud 
 From which kind nature many taints removed. 
 A Mephistopheles, yea, bargaining the soul 
 Of peaceful, loving realms, approved of heaven 
 For resurrected dreams of might and world domain, 
 Which long had been exiled from non-barbarian 
 
 minds 
 And slept for ages in self-sealed sepulchres 
 With outworn creeds and outlived principles. 
 
 What sound with gentle heaving sighs 
 So somberly prophetic round my listless ears, 
 Like murmur of some cosmic heaving, dreamily 
 Reverberated in the pearly labyrinth 
 Of some contorted conches rosy beaded hall 
 Incrystaled on some calm bay's winding marge, 
 Bathed in the splendor of a full moon's ray? 
 Is it some bold manoeuvre of a Titan God 
 Eternally enthroned on some gyrating sphere? 
 Some swinging of his hand, some tossing of his head, 
 Which vibrates through etherial spaces thus? 
 Or night mare groans escaping from his breast. 
 Terrific blasts within their range, but spreading out 
 Into remoter space, fade and become 
 But infant's sighs, a momentary breeze 
 Caused by the flapping of a butterfly's soft wing? 
 
 And as I listen, swimming into view, 
 A star with bright meteoric flash, 
 With sudden illumination of the skies 
 Darts through the frozen depths of unmapped zones, 
 
24 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 And leaves a path like bright wine poured, 
 From ancient jars in which long seasons stored, 
 Upturned by swart hand of some suave Egyptian 
 
 queen. 
 Undimmed still the glow bright glimmers these, 
 Like brilliant flickering of Northern Lights 
 On cold eternal snows of arctic zones. 
 It stays as if it were some sacred scroll unrolled 
 By unseen hands and vvlth a glowing jewel pin- 
 ned 
 Upon the silver beams of some convenient star. 
 And now a blazing comet brushes out its flimsy 
 tail, 
 Erratic wanderer among more constant spheres, 
 Befeared Leviathan of unbounded space, 
 So flagrant in its sudden forwardness 
 As if it would dash Vesper from his throne 
 And swish a dozen more enthroned stars. 
 From out their old, unchangeable orbit's course 
 With one swift, million-miled swing 
 Of its mushroom appendage thinned out over space, 
 Like firey banner streaming in the air it rushes on. 
 Leading invisible forces o'er highways of heaven. 
 Passing the constellations with such wild terrific 
 
 sweep, 
 It fans their fires into a brighter blaze. 
 And widely opens their eyes in a bewildered gaze. 
 And now dark clouds with their own fury swollen, 
 Pregnant with churning tempest's untried might 
 Rise and spread o'er the beacon's brilliant beam. 
 Chaffing like Phaethon's steeds the prancing leaders 
 
 fly, 
 
Echoes of Democracy 25 
 
 Wild Boreas guiding them with streaming winds, 
 
 for unseen reigns, 
 Urging them on with forked lightning's lash 
 And with the roar (if thunder's trembling might. 
 And as the chariot thunders o'er the echoing airs, 
 Up flash the glowing sparks beneath the whifing 
 
 wheels ; 
 Forth shoots the lurid lightning, like silverv veins 
 Phosphorescent in the ebony fabric of the skies. 
 Up higher, higher in tiie heavens they roll, 
 Purple with wrath and green with fierce destruc- 
 tion's scourge, 
 And surge on near the fields of easiest toll, 
 To fury goaded by the whirlwind's caged wrath. 
 Lashed by chain lightning's intermittent scourge, 
 y\nd ilred by uncontrollable electric might. 
 Let loose from vaporous caves the thunders roll 
 Their deafening challenge to the couchant earth 
 Which hides its trembling life beneath its spreading 
 
 wing, 
 While round the peak already whirls the hurricane 
 And tearing from its roots the aged ash 
 Bears it aloft o'er valleys and o'er hills. 
 
 Oh terrifying rumbling! Ominous sound! 
 Oh dread subaltern groans, blent with the din 
 Of thunders deafening roar and swish of lashing 
 
 hail. 
 No sigh now plays about my fully wakened ears: 
 No breeze produced by flap of butterflies' soft wings 
 Bears incense to my well awearied nerves. 
 Tis now the tremor of an earthquake's might, 
 Tossing men's temples in a playful rage, 
 
26 Echoes of Deinocracy 
 
 The roar of fierce volcano's resurrected wrath, 
 
 Rejuvenated, after quiet suns for centuries. 
 
 Have basked their rays within the cratered depths 
 
 Beneath its seething pit the while 
 
 Its smothered anger smoldered with its might un- 
 
 quelled, 
 What is that nimble form, which suddenly shoots 
 Forth from the darkness of contending elements, 
 And dashes like a roe, torn by pursuing hounds, 
 Like bleeding fawn by eagle's talons clawed. 
 And at my side exhausted halts her race, 
 While from her eyes delirious glances leap 
 And on the paleness of her cheek with merciless 
 
 hold. 
 Pain gloating on her agony, twitches and writhes? 
 
 Her hair disheveled by the furious blast 
 As if escaping fear cling to her shoulders close. 
 From out of the depths of tears, which on her cheeks, 
 Gleam like dew on shrouds of belated ghosts. 
 Whom morning frightens with its rosy gleam, 
 Fright stares with wild delirious glancing eves. 
 While at its side despair lags with bowed head. 
 The red drops, trickling down her bruised breast 
 Are not the crimson of a sunset sky, 
 Fresh poured o'er clouds of delicate intricacies. 
 But is the glare alighting all the murky skv, 
 On midnight when alarmed citizen's behold their 
 
 homes ablaze. 
 With arms extended she kneels and passionately 
 
 pleads. 
 "Oh where is there a refuge on the turbulent 
 
 earth ? 
 
Echoes of Democracy 27 
 
 Where is Compassion's feathered pillow on which I 
 
 May rest my bruised and unmantled head? 
 Where is caressing balm's soft mitigating touch 
 To which these wounds may plead for soothing 
 
 myrrh ? 
 My unprotected hands have left their warm blood 
 Upon tiie edge of cold Damascus blades, 
 My body has been blown upon the thorns of life. 
 And pierced by briers of inhumanity 
 My feet are blistered by the sharp-edged stones 
 O'er which I fled on long and treacherous ways, 
 My eyes in which the tear of sorrow clings 
 Grow dark, as darksome as the fiends pursuing 
 
 me." 
 "Where are the jewels, which once my breast 
 
 adorned ? 
 Ah lost and widely scattered in the mad foray. 
 Jewels, plucked not greedily from mankind's hand, 
 But given me for services rendered humanity. 
 Here hung a sapphire, truth awarded me, 
 Here blazed a ruby golden love hung there, 
 There glowed an agate duty wooed me with. 
 There shone an emerald courage fastened there. 
 Protect me and the loss of these I'll make seem 
 
 small. 
 For newer services I'll render men, 
 VV^ill make all coral reefs beneath the waves. 
 Inadequate to price your gratitude. 
 
 Oh help me or I perish, I faint, I bleed. I die, 
 Breathe on these wounds some fragrant balm, 
 Distilled from nectars of flowers' frankincense, 
 Seasoned by animated fragrance of generous souls; 
 
28 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 Stop up this blood with bright, ungilded lily leaves 
 Of mercy garnered in a true, unselfish heart. 
 Anoint my feet, my hands, with holy oils of sympathy 
 Still unpolluted by the fangs of hate ; 
 Press on my feverish brow a dewy wreath, 
 Braided by friendly fingers of benevolence 
 And dipped into cool fountains of unselfishness, 
 Oh find some balm! My brain with fever burns! 
 
 Nowhere is respite, dragons of the air 
 Dart at me with tiieir avaricious beaks, 
 If refuge beckons me to harbor there; 
 Fierce serpents of the sea, hell hounds turned loose, 
 Mad weir-wolves, hybrids of weird mongrel brutes, 
 Rend my poor bosom, if my bark of grief I sail 
 Upon its blue for solace and repose. 
 On land the bavonets' gleam, the shriek of bursting 
 
 shell. 
 Break in upon my momentary solitudes, 
 Making my life successions of grim agonies. 
 
 Oh find me refuge, harbor me 
 Within the bosom of thine old time love!" 
 
 E'er I could stoop to soothe her burning brow. 
 And breathe a world of comfort to her soul, 
 I saw a million muscular arms outstretched 
 Unto her bleeding, mutiliated form 
 And from the gathering throng a shout uprose, 
 "Blessed Liberty we hear thy cry, we come. 
 Fly to our arms, we'll harbor thee. 
 We'll find a refuge for thy bruised limbs 
 And plunge a dagger in the cruelty. 
 Which hounded thee o'er dizzy, treacherous ways. 
 In Belgium were your powers paralized, 
 
Echoes of Democracy 29 
 
 By brutal onslaughts of vainglorious savagery ; 
 
 In Northern France thy tender arms were bruised 
 
 By piercing briers of cruel barbarity ; 
 
 In Poland were thy sides bedaggered thus 
 
 By heartless spears of inhumanity ; 
 
 In Servia were thy feverish brow unwreathcd 
 
 And on them pressed a crown of piercing thorns. 
 
 Oh fly into our arms, we'll be thy vassal knights, 
 
 Thy proud protectors and fair proteges." 
 
 We saw the talons of inhum.an torture gripe 
 Her innocent form and stood too horrified to strike 
 An enraged blow at fierce oppression's frightful- 
 
 ness. 
 We heard her call but to the pity of her cries 
 No response came from our astonished lips. 
 Distraction drew a veil before our eyes 
 That in our lethargy we could not see truth's 
 
 awfulness, 
 And listlessness stuffed languor in our ears 
 That terrible sounds were but a fairy's stir, 
 Within the perfumed atmosphere of shaded dells. 
 Not till she swept upon us like a fleeing dove. 
 With red drops dripping from her bruised brow, 
 Did we awaken to the consciousness of her despair. 
 Where is the pale faced courage that would 
 
 shrink 
 From kissing this devoted lady's lily hand 
 She would outstretch for routing her cruel scvi 
 
 tors ? 
 Where is procrastinating fear that still will stare 
 Into the heavenly blue of her wild, pleading eye. 
 Out of whose depths smiles of celestial gratitude 
 
30 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 Would beam on those, who wrested her from brutal 
 
 foes? 
 Where's unawakened duty, that will sit 
 With arms folded at the feet of negligence 
 And puff his pipe, while through the stricken world, 
 Ruin runs riot and like a willful child 
 Now devastates that which he cherished formerly? 
 Then rescue with its subdued anger all aflame, 
 With keen determination in its flashing eyes. 
 Raises its strong right arm in firm command 
 And leads the host against the hated tyranny. 
 Nay not as conqueror it comes, for flash of swords 
 No more has bright reflection in the smiles of 
 
 heaven, 
 But from the angry spark of non-approval's brow 
 Is flashed back with the glow of stern reproof 
 As signal of outlived necessity, 
 For fame and honor no more deck the swotd with 
 
 laurel wreathes'. 
 No, not as conquerors, but as a force 
 To pluck the cankerous growth from out th.=^ world, 
 So that no more it bursting will deluge 
 Earth with the blood of innocence and purgatory of 
 
 pain. 
 
Echoes of Democracy 31 
 
 THE BROKEN BOW 
 
 I watched the sun spread out its golden hands 
 And scatter flakes of emerald on the bosom of the 
 
 clouds, 
 And hang his scarlet draperies aloft 
 Upon the rosy pinions of their brightening hues 
 Thus curtaining off the world in which he ha? en- 
 throned 
 Dew sceptered sleep and soft-crowned, unrobed rest, 
 From that celestial realm, which still he sweeps 
 With undimmed radiance of eternal eyes. 
 I saw his flaming head with glowing locks 
 Lean on the sapphire pillars, shooting forth 
 From gentle Hashing of the mountain's lily brow, 
 And wrapping o'er his form the folds of clouds 
 Breathes forth a poppied incense on the darkening 
 
 world 
 And like an actor, showered with rosy wreathes 
 Retires serenely from his boundless stage. 
 
 Upon the rosy bosom of the clouds, 
 I see the fires of our race aglow. 
 Not passion, puffing with hot nostrils wide, 
 Nor beaming hope with lustrous eyes aflame, 
 But drops of life blood oozing from our weakening 
 
 veins 
 Which throbbing with vitality once laughed 
 To see the terror-stricken usurper 
 Flee from the pathway of our arrow's deadly flight. 
 And in the red rays of the mellowing sun 
 I see our fainting spirit pine away 
 And gasp for calm revivifying airs 
 
Echoes of Democracy 
 
 Breathed from the golden valleys of fair hunting 
 
 grounds. 
 No more will noonday suns, look on our noon of 
 
 life 
 With fresh hope beaming from his undiminished 
 
 ray, 
 With vigor brimming o'er the cup of unaccomplished 
 
 deeds 
 And faith with beckoning hand \^'ave on 
 Exulting spirits to valorous deeds. 
 The noonday of our life is past and xvnv 
 We languish ever in the sunset's passive maze 
 Through which the luring hand of distant shades 
 Reach forth with gestures of suspended doom. 
 No more the languid moon rubs dew drops 
 
 from his eyes 
 When blinded by the Hood of heaven's light 
 And sends a laughing beam down through the leafy 
 
 boughs 
 Upon our campfires revelry or on the din 
 Of trampling war dance with its dreaded whoop, 
 Or on the wreathed smoke ^v-here quiet peace 
 Sat curled and hearkened to our intercourse. 
 No more the sleepless stars on sum.mer nights 
 Watch o'er our slumbers and make pleasant dreams 
 Lead off our spirits to far fairy lands, 
 And guard our wigwams from avenging foes. 
 
 The white man's way is not the red man's way. 
 Nor is the red man's way the white man's way. 
 'I'he pale face boasts of blessed democracy, 
 Which no man yearns for but what he is froe, 
 Yet stronger nations still enslave the weak. 
 
Echoes of Democracy 33 
 
 Captivity blinks at us with its downcast eye 
 And da^'gcr jjlanccs furrowin;; eternal wounds 
 Through injured pride, burns flaming through our 
 
 brain. 
 Chained freedom pines within its dungeon walls 
 i\nd gropes about for sweet deliverance, 
 While weight of cumbersome customs and alien 
 
 laws 
 Mang on our soul's affliction, as a cage 
 Fetters the spirit of the wild bird's joyous note. 
 Now calls the great White Father from his East- 
 ern home, 
 And says the dogs of war arc ravishing the earth. 
 That nations are imperiled b^- great woe 
 And libert\ 's loved strong hold is assailed, 
 1 hat on the top of civilization's pinnacle 
 Delirium sits and at the head of reason hurls 
 I Vead thunderbolts of grim defiance down, 
 That on the cushion of sweet mercy's seat 
 Fierce hate with foaming jaws apart, loud snarls 
 And at the lily bosom of unrevengeful love 
 Flashes his fangs with wild looks in his staring eye. 
 Vo us what are the white man's jealousies? 
 ^Vhat are the profound reaches of his delving mind^ 
 ^Vhat are the arched temples with their marble 
 
 halls 
 In which proud beautv sits enthroned, Narcissus 
 
 like 
 And pines at its own beaming loveliness 
 Fcflected in resplendant mirrored walls? 
 ^Mi.it are the flights <.>f \'int:i or of An'relo 
 
34 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 Who breathed life in cold marble or on canvas 
 
 blazed 
 Dreams slumbering in God's bosom centuries un- 
 
 exprest ? 
 What is the golden page in which lie sealed 
 The precious life blood of a master spirit's muse? 
 What are the speechless messages of air, 
 The wheels of industry on which vain luxury 
 Keeps its propelling fingers on? 
 What are the dignities of jurisprudence with its 
 
 pomp 
 Where justice sits Avith scales aloft in hand 
 Ready to weigh the differences of men? 
 
 For us the full moon sprinkling his soft beams 
 Upon our wigwam's willow-studded dome, 
 The great trees reaching out their giant hands 
 And with their subdued voices conjuring forth 
 The dryads and the host of ariel's following 
 Create more beauty for us than Venus to eager 
 
 Grecian eyes. 
 For us the pine trees strumming with their fragrant 
 
 fingers on 
 Invisible harp strings of the answering airs, 
 Transcends the divine tones of superb symphonies 
 Breathed from the soul of music and diffused 
 By magic baton of a master's hand. 
 The beaver and the bee, migrating birds, 
 The hue of clouds the dew drops hanging on the 
 
 rose. 
 Sap oozing from the maple, changeful wail of winds. 
 The ocean chaffing round unmovable cliffs. 
 Teach us more wisdom than the white man's lore. 
 
Echoes of Democracy 35 
 
 The fires of our heart tells us when we are wronged. 
 The virtues of our souls tell us when others are in 
 
 the right. 
 No robed prelate need adjust our woes 
 No pompous justice need redress our wrongs. 
 For knowledge without wisdom's guiding light 
 Oft stoops to folly's infelicities, 
 While wisdom without learning's legended lorr 
 Oft shuns the pitfalls of alluring snares. 
 
 Now comes the call for our young men to bare 
 Their bosoms to the fury of avenging hate 
 To go where death grabs in its skeleton hands 
 The fardels in which writhe convulsed wrath 
 Eager, upon the lily breast of hope, 
 To vent destruction's, fierce demoniac lust 
 And shatter virtue with its furies wild. 
 They're called to wade through rivers red with 
 
 gore, 
 In which hot, seething hate and anger surge, 
 Let out of civilization's unprotected gate, 
 A civilization, which uncivilizes still. 
 For did not signs from heaven, the darkened sun, 
 The thunder and the tremor of the shaking earth 
 Flight of weird fowls, oft stay the hand of savage 
 
 men? 
 The pale-faced warrior fears not God, nor heeds not 
 
 man. 
 But tries to make his own meek might supreme. 
 Therefore must fall before the spirit's wrath. 
 Who seeks to transcend God, opens the door of 
 
 hell. 
 
36 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 There was a time we kept our bow strings tight 
 And needed not much provocation from an emeny 
 Before the rattle snake skin filled with arrows bore 
 A challenge to the haughty trangressor. 
 The fierce war whoop in which the race's wrath 
 Pronounced its right unto the listening sky, 
 Fell just as welcome on our wakening ears 
 As the soft songs of feast and revelry. 
 The quiver shouldered for the war path's bloody 
 
 trail. 
 In which the scalp was trophy of a victory, 
 Was borne as gleefully as in the chase, 
 AVhen like the wind we darted on the deer 
 And sped our arrows faster than his flight. 
 When the wild wolf repaired unto his den. 
 Rather than show his teeth unto our bold advance; 
 When the huge bear hied to the forest's depths 
 Fearing to face our huntsmen's deadly aim. 
 
 And when the fierceness of our strength was dead- 
 liest, 
 The sun was darkened by our arri)w's flight 
 And like a storm cloud furrowing through the 
 
 air 
 Dealt havoc on the region where they fell. 
 Oft were the moon beams pierced by their sharp 
 
 edge, 
 As on the perfumed air their course was steered. 
 And starlight oft was shattered with their whirr 
 As like a silver beam they glanced along. 
 But now our bow is broken and unstrung 
 The white man looks upon the sun and from its 
 rays, 
 
Echoes of Detiiocracy 37 
 
 Draws powers incomprehensible to the red man's 
 
 mind. 
 He looks upon the heavens and his big canoes 
 Sail o'er the ocean safe to distant ports ; 
 He looks upon the clouds and thunders roll; 
 He digs into the earth and finds the fire 
 That sends his bullets unseen through the air. 
 He knows the power of the spirit's strength 
 And now our bow has lost its ancient might. 
 
 ■ No, fear hangs not about our fallen brow, 
 The sound of battle does not chill our blood, 
 Nor does the war whoop of an enemy, 
 Drive terror in our subdued soul, 
 Nor has the strangeness of the white man's way 
 Sapped out the strength of our vitality. 
 But we are in the sunset of our life. 
 The nightingale sings for us now and not the 
 
 lark. 
 The owl floats over us in noiseless flight 
 Instead of the proud eagle glorying in his strength, 
 The coyote howls for us his twilight call 
 Where wolf was wont to snarl from daylight lair. 
 And we should fight. Where is our land ? 
 Where is our country? Where the land, where 
 
 bees 
 Once for our winter's larder honey stored? 
 Where is the land, where endless woodlands wild 
 Kept camp fires of our nation glowing bright? 
 Where are the plains where first we sowed the 
 
 maize 
 And put the sweet potato in the ground. 
 And tilled tobacco for our pipe of peace? 
 
38 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 Where is the prairie over which the buffalo 
 Roamed in the bright days of his flourishing 
 Thick as the grass on which the great herds grazed? 
 Where are the forests where the beaver built his 
 
 dam 
 And where the deer fled from our arrow's flight? 
 Where are the autumn skies, through which in long 
 
 profile 
 The wild geese honked the whole day through? 
 These realms were ours once. Long days and 
 
 days 
 We could trudge on and still could find no end 
 Unto our vast dominions. Towards the East 
 Where the great sun each morning rubs his dewy 
 
 eyes 
 And starts his journey cross the firmament, 
 Good many moons could travel and still could not 
 
 come. 
 Unto the rosy land of sunrise ever fair. 
 Unto the West, where every night the sun enfolds 
 His form in ruddy folds of clouds, 
 We could journey the flowery summer long 
 And still not come unto the sunset land. 
 Toward the South whence come the warm winds 
 That puts the color in the fragrant rose, 
 We could weeks wander and still could not come 
 Unto the tropic land where the soft winds are 
 
 caved. 
 Toward the North whence come the chilly blast, 
 That sifts the cold snows o'er the frozen land, 
 We could on wander whole long seasons through 
 And yet not come unto the land of snows. 
 
Echoes of Democracy 39 
 
 And now men wonder why the God of war 
 Steels not our arrows with their former might, 
 With their unconquerable deadlines? of ancient 
 
 times, 
 Why hangs our quiver on the willow tree, 
 And why our bow lies on the ground unstrung, 
 But they do not consider that no more 
 We battle for possession of our hunting grounds 
 Or for the welfare of our enslaved race. 
 They do not see that patriotic fire 
 No more burns in our bosom as of yore ; 
 They see not that we are an alien race 
 Within the very land where once our nation thrived. 
 The white man's spirit conjured ours away, 
 fie comprehends things that we cannot know. 
 He lifts his mighty hand and fires burn, 
 fie looks upon the air and winds begin to blow, 
 He talks to men a thousand miles away, 
 He drives an iron horse around the world, 
 And mingles with the clouds on woven wings, 
 We comprehend his ways not and are doomed. 
 
 The sunset of our days are come. The very 
 glow, 
 Which trembles on the bright clouds of the West, 
 Also illuminates the farther Eastern gates 
 Of our long cherished hunting grounds. 
 
40 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 THE EXODUS 
 
 Arise, ye pale faced hordes with hollow eyes, 
 Shapes dusky with the darkness of your doom, 
 Forlorn images of men that were ; 
 Rise and look out upon the sunlit skies, 
 No longer grown beneath hot, hobbling chains. 
 The bolts have fallen from the dungeon doors. 
 
 Ay, stand there stunned and speechless with sur- 
 prise. 
 With lips apart in mute astonishment. 
 Ye tliat ne'er felt the thrill of freedom's throb, 
 How can ye grasp the golden promises 
 Of an eternal fete of liberty? 
 A murmur, you went to Siberian wilds, 
 A prayer for light and you were thrust in chains, 
 A cry for freedom and your souls were doomed. 
 Oh wonder not that whirlwinds of revenge 
 Thus shook foundations of a tottering throne 
 And let the light stream through these battered 
 doors. 
 
 There is a silence; a light in questioning eves; 
 Spasmodic tears; a shuffling of the feet 
 A tugging at the outlawed manacles. 
 Then cries of exultation from the crowd 
 Burst like a tluuuler peel upon the winils, 
 "[lie plaudits of a throng of new-born men, 
 Wild with new hopes, new dreams, new destines. 
 A hundred thousand so\ils delivered! Thus 
 Stern justice rises with its crushing might! 
 
Echoes of Democracy 41 
 
 The rivers and the valleys and the steppes;, 
 The cities and the forests and the fields, 
 Rejoice as to their haunts the exiles file 
 And in prophetic voices hail them thus: 
 "1 destroy not, nor oppress, seek not revenge, 
 Hut lead, and formulating dreams, fulfill 
 The loftiest visions of your high ideals, 
 Dreams borne of justice, honor and of truth 
 And relegating passions, hatred, pride. 
 Look for the best in men, which when you find. 
 The worst will not be irremediable. 
 Oh cherish well \'our new won liberties, 
 Pregnant with unknown perils and new fears." 
 
42 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 TIME'S BURST OF DAWN 
 
 Downtrodden generations, million wrongs 
 Curse loud the tyranny, which tread you down 
 And keep the heel upon your liberty. 
 That stoop, the world's unpardonable tragedy, 
 Heaped up with scoffs and curses of proud ranV 
 Which laughs to see your destines obscure, 
 Bows with the burden of the centuries. 
 Long slaves to autocratic regimes, 
 Which but administers to selfish ends, 
 And puppets to the despot's ruthless power, 
 Which looks with lustful eye upon the world, 
 By greater darkness pressed on in the dark, 
 By weightier woes pushed deeper in your woe, 
 How long will )'0u be minions to man's might? 
 
 Age after age, but trampled on you more 
 And hounded down each little spark of fire 
 That kindling it might not blaze forth and show 
 The plight that you for ages listless bore. 
 Rut rouse the stupor from your misled minds, 
 For by snail-paced degrees, the lingering light 
 Fought back by darkness, blacker than the shad** 
 Of the most terrible thought in freedom's breast, 
 Has sent its ray upon truth's towering peak 
 And lights despairing looks in hungry eyes. 
 
 Oh ! God ! the long, long vigils hot with pain. 
 The balmless miseries with downcast looks 
 The heartaches, bittered by unjust rebukes. 
 The ceaseless struggle with no goal in view, 
 
Echoes of Democracy 43 
 
 Have put the pallor there, the vacant stoop, 
 Which makes him like the things from which he 
 
 sprang, 
 An ape-like creature of the eons past. 
 See how his hands reach downward toward the 
 
 ground. 
 The more his shoulders stoop, the brows slant back, 
 The more he takes the form of things outlived. 
 Oh lords take heed! some day these shapes will 
 
 turn 
 And torture you into ten thousand deaths, 
 He cowers now, but some day he will strike, 
 
 There are the splendors and the glories vea, 
 The palace and the gorgeous promenade, 
 The loaded larder and the flowing robes. 
 The contumacious look on those below. 
 While here lean hunger stalks with sunken eyes 
 And tattered poverty shrinks back in shame 
 And timid homage cowers at the feet 
 Of those who can give life or quench its flame. 
 
 Was this the dream that the creator dreamed 
 When he laid out the empires of the world 
 And peopled them by breathing clods to life? 
 Were not they all raised from the dust equal 
 And equal turn again unto the dust 
 No favor shown to emperor or clown? 
 
 Oh slumbering giant awake and burst thy chains. 
 For thou art strong, but ignorant of thy might, 
 And when the wrongs of thousand bitter years 
 Rise in thy soul what bonds can hold thee down? 
 For thou art then stern justice stirred to wrath 
 
44 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 And Avhat can stand before thy fearful might? 
 Awaken, yea, the light is on the hills 
 The day light breaks, the time to strike has come. 
 Let this be fullilled dreams, which prophets told 
 "^he longed millennium, Time's Burst of Dawn. 
 
Echoes of Democracy 45 
 
 FORSAKEN 
 
 Where is the sunny South with perfumed breath, 
 Which wafts its golden treasures on her charms? 
 Where is the beaming East with laughing step 
 W^hich from her alabaster temples lift 
 The flaxen locks with gentle, amorous touch ? 
 Where is the buxom spirit of the morn, 
 Which on her cheek beams with its rosj' bloom 
 And brims with ruddy freshness on her lips? 
 
 Onced moved she with a swan like grace 
 that charmed 
 The very air in which her lithe limbs stirred ; 
 Once gilded she her blushes with the hues 
 Of roses prest 'twixt beauty's finger tips 
 Until quintessence of rare loveliness 
 Embraced her with immortal charms divine; 
 Once painted she the ermine round her brow 
 With powdered lily leaves, crushed by the flap 
 Of fluttering moth's soft, noiseless, mealy wing. 
 Hilarious notes of spring peeled in her laugh 
 And summer suns beamed in her winsome smile. 
 While in her voice the murmuring wind soft sighed 
 And brooklets sunny echo suavely glowed ; 
 Her tyts outshone the blue of summer skies 
 When lanquid evening airs enfold the hills; 
 Her brown locks made the rosy hue beneath 
 Beam with transcendent beauty more divine ; 
 Her darkest frown glowed with more loveliness 
 Than the most artful smile of maiden's wiles. 
 
46 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 But ah! alas! the silvery thread gleams there, 
 The lustre leadens in her beaming eye, 
 The rose bloom fadeth from her rosy cheeks. 
 The lily coarsens to a shallower hue. 
 Time has fled from his ivied balcony, 
 Where pleasure long caroused imm.une from care, 
 Where beauty languished, fed on thoughts of love. 
 Where poppied dreams looked out upon the vorld 
 And magical wonders sprang from, charmed thought, 
 And perching at the portals of decay 
 Sits with his ugly visage, serpent like 
 Eager to leave his imprint on the cheek 
 Which shudders most at his disfiguring hand. 
 September winds blow on the buds of May 
 And sere the green leaf with its autumn breath. 
 No more the South wind wafts from fragrant zones, 
 The buoyant airs of j'outhful languishment. 
 But from the North, the blustering storms sweep 
 And spring-time freshness, summer beauties fade. 
 
 Deliriously, with looks forlorn, she grasps 
 At vanishing fleetness of her fleeing charms 
 Like ghost-like arms embracing fleeting mists, 
 Impalpable to touch of grasping hand. 
 What's wealth or power or station to her now 
 When her most precious heirloom has since fled? 
 
Echoes of Democracy 47 
 
 THE DESERT LAND 
 
 Forlorn I stood lost in the desert world, 
 While drifting sands piled round me in vast dunes 
 And darkness as from some dark sepulchre 
 Appalled my soul with its oppressive gloom. 
 Nor little comfort was there to be found, 
 Oases were now one wild waste and stretched 
 On bleak, in desolate monotony 
 Unhabited and uninhabitable. 
 What food there was, was bitter with rank airs 
 And nauseated men to gaze thereon, 
 Springs, were polluted with the stench of blood, 
 And where one gazed or paused there venomous 
 
 things 
 Came to him ; holy objects and bright thoughts 
 Ne'er came to shed a light upon the brain. 
 No matter how he called, there echoed back 
 But ghoulish shrieks and fiendish threats in ragf. 
 
 Men there were in the valleys, but such men! 
 Men who no more could reason in their minds. 
 Who with their swords unsheathed in wild stampede 
 Rushed on the nearest victim they beheld 
 Gashing each other's breast with cursings loud. 
 Oblivious to the fires which once burned there. 
 Unmindful of the heart, which so long throbbed 
 With high ambitions and ennobling love, 
 Of elevating mind, where reason sat 
 And shaped the destines of growing worlds. 
 No work of man was spared, accomplishments 
 Of centuries, the dreams of master minds, 
 Things beautiful and noble, sacred things, 
 
48 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 And holy heirlooms of the ages past 
 
 Were trodden under foot as worthless dross, 
 
 As if they were but dust blown by the wind 
 
 And not the product of long patient thought 
 
 The acme of advancement in the world. 
 
 All civilization seemed mere mockery. 
 
 Men's visions rose not from the carnage field. 
 
 Rose not beyond the circuit of their gaze, 
 
 The light had vanished from his soulless brains. 
 
 On to the Westward where the lowering sun 
 Cast its wierd rays upon a lurid stream, 
 
 Lay the unburied dead in ghastly heaps, 
 Half washed o'er by the stagnant flow of sand. 
 O'er head the vultures circled darkling round 
 And darted down to peck at cavernous eyes 
 And tear the flesh from limbs half hid in sedge 
 Or swollen by water seeped through miry sand?- 
 
 Ail this men heeded not ; theirs was no more 
 The dream of beauty and bright thoughts of home 
 And fair discourse of fond relationships. 
 But foul destruction seized their maniac brains 
 That they but longed to curse and to destroy. 
 Vile envy made them trample out all laws 
 Of humankind ; all sense of right and wrong 
 Became distorted by their flagrant views 
 So they no longer prized another's life, 
 But crushed it out as if a fragile thing 
 Of no significant divinity, 
 fierce hatred permeated all their deeds. 
 That blood became the passion of their souls 
 And murder was no longer called a crime 
 But sanctioned by the men in high command. 
 
Echoes of Democracy 49 
 
 I looked round in the gloom, pale with despair, 
 While cold drops chilled the terror on my brow, 
 And in this nightmare I burst out aloud. 
 "My God! My God! hast thou forsaken us? 
 Forsaken man and thy created world?" 
 When lo, a voice came echoing in my ears 
 Above the shrieks, which answered loud my call! 
 
 "Despair thou not who dreamest yet fair dreams 
 Amidst the gloom of a chaotic world. 
 Such visions are but truths, rock bottom truths, 
 Which still survive when mad upstarts are quelled. 
 The dead there, dying as the beasts, yet live 
 And how they live depends on how they fought, 
 If for oppression or for liberty, 
 If marshalled on the side of right or wrong. 
 If zealous to upbuild or to destroy. 
 Who brought this hell on earth, darkening the 
 
 gleam 
 Of civilization's upward proud advance 
 Shall still be thrust in deeper hell than this 
 And groan out their existence in mad throes. 
 Think thou of brighter visions which have been. 
 And of the greater things, which are to be, 
 The present may but madden thy poor mind " 
 
 The voice ceased ; multitudinous shrieks arose 
 From out of the valley ; shrieks of desperate men 
 In their last effort to survive or fall, 
 And shuddering I breathed the swooning air 
 Not knowing where for refuge I should turn. 
 
50 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 BUTTERFLIES 
 
 Bright golden wings, chameleon-colored wings, 
 Adorned with hues of flower, field, and wood, 
 White, yellow, crimson, pink vermillion, brown; 
 Illumined with the tints of sky and sea. 
 Blue, purple, gray, and shades of greenish tinge, 
 Whither so joyously? Whither away? 
 
 Dear childhood days, gay unencumbered days, 
 
 As buoyant as the lambent butterfly, 
 
 Which oft young revelers roused from nesting 
 
 flower, 
 As full of glee as is the summer sky 
 In which the sunlit colors flit and sail 
 Whither so rapidly? Whither away? 
 
 Sweet, youthful dreams, uncurled, fantastic dreams 
 As fervent as the gaudy wings are bright. 
 Which lure the dreamer over moor and mead, 
 Utopian as the gauzy wings are frail, 
 Which oft the oriole crushes in his beak. 
 Whither so lingerly? Whither away? 
 
 Fond youthful hopes, etherial, ardent hopes, 
 
 Inspiring as the perfume bearing breeze, 
 
 Which wafts these fairies o'er the flower)^ field. 
 
 Alluring as the rose to wandering bee, 
 
 Which aims for it avoiding brier and weed 
 
 Whither so tristfully? Whither away? 
 
 Bright golden wings, chameleon-colored wings, 
 Like childhood days, gay, unencumbered, free, 
 
Echoes of Democracy <,l 
 
 Could we feel less the weight of woe-filled years, 
 And keep akindled exuberant flame, 
 For from time's bourne a voice sounds forth anon, 
 "Whither so solemnly? Whither away?" 
 
 THE UNKNOWN REALM 
 
 Dew on a rose is music crystallized, 
 
 As moonbeams on a balmy summer night 
 
 Dancing upon the bosom of the lake 
 
 Keep secret watches for fairies' delight. 
 
 The mother fondling her young babe to rest 
 
 Unconsciously awakens the soul of song, 
 
 But hate! A fiery song of hate! Ah me, 
 
 The devil chants such ditties for his throng. 
 
 Does not the whiteness of the lily sing 
 
 Unto the rosy rays im.pearled in dew? 
 
 Docs not the greenness of the murmuring pine 
 
 Make music to the skies celestial blue? 
 
 Does not the ocean's melancholy roar 
 
 Inchant the mountain's grandeur with its flow? 
 
 I know not in what rosy realms is found 
 
 The theme for song where hate its fangs doth show. 
 
 Does not humanity's redeeming hand 
 Reach forth across the seas, when unforeseen 
 Catastrophe swoops down on some lone land 
 And hurls destruction o'er its valleys green? 
 Docs not the sun smile on the jungled wastes 
 As gently as on kultur's heathen blare? 
 He who with ruthless heart chants hymns of hate, 
 Siiuns nature's music for the devil's choir. 
 
52 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 FAMINE 
 
 Oh, montrous spectre who with burning breath 
 Makes the wind hot as if from desert regions 
 
 blown, 
 The wind, which puts the withering blight in head- 
 ing wheat. 
 And makes the morning glorj^ earlier close 
 Its lily chalice 'gainst the scorching blast, 
 Who dries the fountains at their very source, 
 That e'en the birds flit round with parched beak, 
 Oh have a mercy lest thy talons lift 
 Joy like a diamond from its nestling breast, 
 And leave but darkness, dearth and misery. 
 
 Cold with its blue-hued, chattering chill 
 Can clap its pinching hands together still 
 And start the glow of warmth through frozen veins ; 
 Heat yet can dip its feverish head 
 Into the coolness of a bubbling spring 
 And poverty can tease unwilling alms 
 From overly complacent selfishness. 
 But with thee come a dull, impoverished cold. 
 Which radiating fires cannot make glow with 
 
 warmth ; 
 A feverish heat from which no shady springs 
 Can purge the false, unnatural flush ; 
 
Echoes of De?twcracy 53 
 
 A ghastly poverty, which shoves aside 
 All glamor from the haughtiness of pride. 
 It is the subdued fever of despair. 
 
 Darkling the vultures hover o'er thy head, 
 Dark as the cloud from which their pinions sprang, 
 And watch thy skeleton hands winnow the chaff, 
 From which some fruitful kernels may yet fall. 
 New harvests reaped are not from sprouting seeds, 
 Which bring the golden grain and mellow fruit, 
 But are the propagations of the soul, 
 Bedaggered hearts and holiest bonds impaled. 
 
 WHICH? 
 
 One reaches out his terrible, mailed list 
 To strike down nations, nothing sacred, meek 
 Can stay it from the end its might doth seek. 
 No tender eyes, no tears, no pleading, no trist. 
 'J'he other to men's sorrowing soul doth list, 
 No prayer too beggarly, no faith too weak 
 No eyes too tearful and too wan no cheek 
 But what his cheer doth penetrate the mist. 
 One name shall be symbolic of fierce hate 
 Through all the ages yet interned by time 
 Despised traditions for men to relate. 
 The other exalted with a light sublime, 
 Will be the hero of a nobler fate 
 Forever lauded by legend and rhyme. 
 
54 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 TO FRANCE 
 
 Out of the heart of sunlight's golden glow 
 Hope flashed, that steeled the stought unbending 
 
 will, 
 And trembling fear, which hides its pallid face, 
 When danger looms before its cowering eyes, 
 No more sought darkness its blanched cheek to hide, 
 But was transformed into a fearful might, 
 Which sweeps away all barriers from its path 
 Like cornered beast, which fights unto grim death. 
 
 The gift returns again unto the giver 
 As water from the ocean seeks again 
 The salty depths when freed from vaporous mists. 
 As mercy may rebuke hate's citadel 
 By soulful pleading of a radiant smile. 
 And make it float a banner from its towers 
 Proclaiming high resolved nobility. 
 With not a thought of threatened coercion 
 So Lafayette thy boost for liberty 
 Flowered forth a thousand fold in hundred ways, 
 Now rises in this crucial hour and gives 
 Its hands across the ocean to its protege 
 Full consecrated to its heritage, 
 To battle for oppressed humanity 
 As thou dids't fight for freedom formerly. 
 
Echoes of Democracy 55 
 
 ON THE RECAPTURE OF JERUSALEM 
 
 Over the forehead of the Moslem night 
 Swims the new star with its celestial beam, 
 Through thousand years of darkness comes the 
 
 gleam, 
 Of fulfilled prophecies of blessed light. 
 Oh centuries of bliss, when angels bright. 
 The halos of their pinions oft did stream 
 O'er sacred quiet of the enchanted dream 
 Reflected from the holy roof top's height. 
 The resurrection of a vanquished race, 
 Fortold in tablets ages long ago, 
 Beams like a full blown rose in the embrace 
 Of faith's white fingers, trembling and aglow. 
 With exultation of the divine grace, 
 Which makes long cherished hopes unbudded, blow. 
 
 TO HARNEY PEAK 
 
 Suns rise and set, the seasons come and go, 
 Morn laughs at poppied indolence of night, 
 And night blinks at morn's sudden flood of light, 
 Which through the sable folds its gold doth show. 
 Winds drive the rain clouds by the lightning's 
 
 glow, 
 And frosty cloudlets scatter crystals bright 
 From chilly spaces of unmeasured height. 
 Flowers bloom and fade, men rise and are laid 
 
 low. 
 But thou. Oh hoary peak, where is the eye. 
 That saw thy form upheaved into the blue? 
 
56 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 Where is the ear that heard the echoing sky 
 Roar back thy birth groans from its azure hue' 
 Long after this fierce struggle's faintest cry 
 Thou will'st see nations fall and rise anew, 
 
 THE SNOW FALL 
 
 Oh fluttering wings of angels what affront 
 Hast made thee shed thy feathers crystal white f 
 What demonstration of the starless night 
 Hast made thee quiver with its bold address? 
 Surely, beyond the clouds, the stars still press 
 Their old affections with no thought to fright. 
 And suns yet, look on thee in keen delight 
 With the same ardent fervor they were wont. 
 Or is this fierce clamor here below, 
 Where men's hot curses singe the frightened soul 
 That gives thee this rude paralytic blow? 
 Is it the demon in his villain role 
 Of holy messenger with feigned halo 
 That makes thee shed old garb for a new whole? 
 
 THEY SHALL NOT PASS! 
 
 They shall not pass! How like a bursting flame, 
 Escaped from gloomy dungeon's deep despair, 
 It leaped into the bleakness of night's air, 
 Electrifying souls as once the name 
 
 Of simple, rustic maid like lightning came 
 And filled despairing hearts with visions fair 
 And victory like a radiant jewel rare 
 Flashed from her sword and routed foes in shame. 
 
Echoes of Democracy 57 
 
 Upon that fiery phrase, the destiny 
 
 Of future worlds and unh'ved empires hang. 
 
 In distant ages when men scrutiny 
 
 The sources whence civilzation's new soul sprang, 
 
 Tours still will raise a welcomed rhapsody 
 
 While Marne and Verdun '11 full voiced be sang. 
 
 TO THE THRUSH 
 
 Oh glorious bujst of song from yon green brake, 
 Oh wondrous rift of heaven from your ash bough, 
 Immortal thrilling, which on feverish brow 
 Doth swift the anguish dews of fever slake. 
 In this glad hour when golden sun beams break 
 Their magic hues on drifting clouds, aglow 
 With serene hush of Hesperus rising slow, 
 'Tis glorious still from dreams of death to wake. 
 The world is thine, oh bird, tis all thine own, 
 While fitful we rise 'gainst a terrible throng, 
 Thy voice is not alarmed by bugles blown, 
 No monarch censors thy glad evening song, 
 No vandals hurl thee from thine ivied throne 
 Nor dost thou tremble at the ruthless strong. 
 
 TO THE MOON 
 
 Oh dazzling empress on your silver throne. 
 Attended by the Pleiades sisters seven, 
 Who deck thy crown with gems of jeweled heaven, 
 Ne'er with such beauty has't through dark clouds 
 
 shone. 
 Bewitching shepherdess, thy flocks alone, 
 Adrifting with their silvery fleeces even 
 
58 Echoes of Democracy 
 
 To illimitable pastures, where dews nectars leven, 
 I gaze enraptured, Hark! What rising groan? 
 I call thee queen and yet this is a time. 
 When thrones fall trembling at a subject's glance, 
 When it is not good grace in passionate rhyme 
 Mad monarch's moribund Lares to enhance, 
 When slightest scoff at freedom seems a crime, 
 But whom would not thy magical charms entrance ? 
 
 TO THE EAGLE 
 
 Piercing the clouds with calm majestic wing 
 
 Thou soarest from thy lofty mountain throne, 
 
 Leaving behind the heat and feverish groan, 
 
 Which from the fitful throng beneath doth spring. 
 
 What peace those airs must to thy being bring. 
 
 What wild excelsior from the heaven blown, 
 
 What mad intoxications must be known 
 
 Aloft from hot congestion's battling. 
 
 A monarch, but no craven monarch thou, 
 
 Thy battles are fought by thy might alone, 
 
 No winged battalions wait thy nodding brow. 
 
 Which to destruction by thy word are thrown. 
 
 A king, yet to which none in bondage bow. 
 
 The peaks are free for those who would them own. 
 
 OUT OF THE OLD 
 
 Out of the old new worlds full fledged shall spring. 
 
 So ever out of desolation's gloom, 
 
 A golden harvest flowereth forth full bloom 
 
 As if our teen was shade of angel's wing. 
 
 Does not the seed decay that it might bring 
 
 New generations from eternal doom? 
 
Echoes of Democracy 59 
 
 What visions must before the mother loom 
 As birth pangs bring death closely hovering. 
 Cerulean skies will still shine on as blue, 
 
 Bright trembling with the happy hearts of morn, 
 Night's slumbers sealed with cooling flush of dew. 
 Will still fall sweetly on sad hopes forlorn. 
 Out of the fiendish heart of hate, a new 
 Uplifting love in fair realms shall be born. 
 
 IN THE COLD 
 
 Out in the cold he sleeps, the dreary cold. 
 Sleeps with the stars, beneath the moonless sk;\ . 
 The winds breathe softly with a wailful sigh. 
 Breathe o'er the grasses which the tomb enfold. 
 Such is his first night in the dreary cold; 
 His first night's slumber 'neath the open sky, 
 Deep in the ground, beneath his Maker's eye. 
 While we sit by the lamplight as of old. 
 The grief we heralded, we cannot know, 
 Our spirit too is hovering where he sleeps, 
 And thus subdued the tears forget to flow. 
 Death's shudder o'er the broken spirit creeps, 
 When some kind friend is suddenly stricken low, 
 A loved one, takes our spirit where he sleeps. 
 
 TO VENICE 
 
 Fair vision, raised by some enchanter's wand 
 From ruby tints of corals crystal clear. 
 Bright jewel in proud Neptune's emerald ear 
 Round which the foaming locks curl and expand, 
 Charmed miracle sprang from the magic strand, 
 
6o Echoes of Democracy 
 
 Where no rude sound burst in upon the cheer 
 Of heaving waters, where quiet doth not fear 
 To stretch himself upon the golden sand, 
 May ruthless Huns with lust wild in their eyes 
 Not sink their fangs into thy beauty's side, 
 May from the sea the guardian serpent rise 
 That rose when Laocoon rebuked her pride 
 And strike in trembling foe a wild surmise, 
 When crushing coils enfold their martial stride. 
 
 OLD GLORY 
 
 My heart is thrilled, my soul profoundly stirred 
 When I behold Old Glory's folds unfurled, 
 What's more divinely noble in the world 
 Than thy stripes streaming in the air unblurred? 
 Emblem of justice, light whose beams long lured 
 Downtrodden pilgrims, from their own lands hurled 
 By dread oppression, which about them curled 
 Obnoxious bondage not to be endured. 
 Wave on Old Glory, wave thy virtues wide, 
 Power's not thy glory, right and justice thine, 
 When liberty lies bleeding, woe betide 
 The tyrant that shall not his greed confine! 
 For million men will spring up to thy side. 
 Ready to die that right may brighter shine. 
 
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