Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Lift the heart and lift the head!

360

Lofty be its mood and grave, Not without a martial ring, Not without a prouder tread And a peal of exultation: Little right has he to sing Through whose heart in such an hour Beats no march of conscious power, Sweeps no tumult of elation! 'T is no Man we celebrate, By his country's victories great, A hero half, and half the whim of Fate, But the pith and marrow of a Nation Drawing force from all her men, Highest, humblest, weakest, all, For her time of need, and then Pulsing it again through them, Till the basest can no longer cower, Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall, Touched but in passing by her mantlehem.

370

Come back, then, noble pride, for 't is her dower!

How could poet ever tower,

If his passions, hopes, and fears, If his triumphs and his tears, Kept not measure with his people? 380 Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds and waves!

Clash out, glad bells, from every rocking steeple!

Banners, advance with triumph, bend your staves!

And from every mountain-peak

Let beacon-fire to answering beacon speak,

Katahdin tell Monadnock, Whiteface

he,

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

No challenge sends she to the elder world,

That looked askance and hated; a light scorn

Plays o'er her mouth, as round her mighty knees

She calls her children back, and waits the morn

Of nobler day, enthroned between her subject seas.'

[blocks in formation]

And letting thy set lips,

Freed from wrath's pale eclipse, The rosy edges of their smile lay bare, What words divine of lover or of poet Could tell our love and make thee know it,

Among the Nations bright beyond compare?

421

What were our lives without thee? What all our lives to save thee? We reck not what we gave thee; We will not dare to doubt thee, But ask whatever else, and we will dare!

1865.

The Atlantic Monthly, Sept.. 1865.

POEMS OF THE CIVIL WAR

(1861-1865)

(Under this heading are included representative verse which would not otherwise have appeared in this volume. A full list of the poems of the War printed in the index, includes also contributions on this fruitful theme from Bryant, Whittier, Lowell, Timrod, Hayne, Longfellow, Holmes, Lanier, and Whitman.)

HOW OLD BROWN TOOK

HARPER'S FERRY 1

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN

John Brown in Kansas settled, like a steadfast Yankee farmer,

Brave and godly, with four sons, all stalwart men of might. There he spoke aloud for freedom, and the Border-strife grew warmer, Till the Rangers fired his dwelling, in his absence, in the night;

And Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Came homeward in the morning-to find his house burned down.

Then he grasped his trusty rifle and boldly fought for freedom;

Smote from border unto border the fierce, invading band;

And he and his brave boys vowed-so might Heaven help and speed 'em!— They would save those grand old prairies from the curse that blights the land;

II

[blocks in formation]

said to have often enjoyed reading this aloud to his family, included it in his volume of selections, "Parnassus."

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »