High on the world did our fathers of old, Under the stars and stripes, Blazon the name that we now must uphold, Under the stars and stripes. Vast in the past they have builded an arch Over which Freedom has lighted her torch. Follow it! Follow it! Come, let us march Under the stars and stripes!
We in whose bodies the blood of them runs, Under the stars and stripes, We will acquit us as sons of their sons, Under the stars and stripes. Ever for justice, our heel upon wrong, We in the light of our vengeance thrice strong! Rally together! Come tramping along Under the stars and stripes!
Out of our strength and a nation's great need, Under the stars and stripes, Heroes again as of old we shall breed, Under the stars and stripes. Broad to the winds be our banner unfurled! Straight in Spain's face let defiance be hurled! God on our side, we will battle the world Under the stars and stripes!
Madison Cawein.
From "Poems of American Patriotism," selected by R. L. Paget.
The Dedication
Ah, not for us the Heavens that hold God's message of Promethean fire! The Flame that fell on bards of old To hallow and inspire. Yet let the Soul dream on and dare No lessSong's height that these possess: We can but fail; and may prepare The way to some success.
The Evanescent Beautiful
Day after Day, young with eternal beauty, Pays flowery duty to the month and clime; Night after night erects a vasty portal Of stars immortal for the march of Time.
But where are now the Glory and the Rapture, That once did capture me in cloud and stream? Where now the Joy that was both speech and silence? Where the beguilance that was fact and dream?
I know that Earth and Heaven are as golden As they of olden made me feel and see; Not in themselves is lacking aught of power Through star and flower – something's lost in me.
Return! Return! I cry, O Visions vanished, O Voices banished, to my Soul again!— The near Earth blossoms and the far Skies glisten, I look and listen, but, alas! in vain.
August
I
Clad on with glowing beauty and the peace, Benign, of calm maturity, she stands Among her meadows and her orchard-lands, And on her mellowing gardens and her trees, Out of the ripe abundance of her hands, Bestows increase And fruitfulness, as, wrapped in sunny ease, Blue-eyed and blonde she goes, Upon her bosom Summer's richest rose.
II
And he who follows where her footsteps lead, By hill and rock, by forest-side and stream, Shall glimpse the glory of her visible dream, In flower and fruit, in rounded nut and seed: She in whose path the very shadows gleam; Whose humblest weed Seems lovelier than June's loveliest flower, indeed, And sweeter to the smell Than April's self within a rainy dell.
III
Hers is a sumptuous simplicity Within the fair Republic of her flowers, Where you may see her standing hours on hours, Breast-deep in gold, soft-holding up a bee To her hushed ear; or sitting under bowers Of greenery, A butterfly a-tilt upon her knee; Or, lounging on her hip, Dancing a cricket on her finger-tip.
IV
Aye, let me breathe hot scents that tell of you: The hoary catnip and the meadow-mint, On which the honour of your touch doth print Itself as odour. Let me drink the hue Of ironweed and mist-flow'r here that hint, With purple and blue, The rapture that your presence doth imbue Their inmost essence with, Immortal though as transient as a myth.
V
Yea, let me feed on sounds that still assure Me where you hide: the brooks', whose happy din Tells where, the deep retired woods within, Disrobed, you bathe; the birds', whose drowsy lure Tells where you slumber, your warm-nestling chin Soft on the pure Pink cushion of your palm … What better cure For care and memory's ache Than to behold you so and watch you wake!
The Higher Brotherhood
To come in touch with mysteries Of beauty idealizing Earth, Go seek the hills, grown old with trees, The old hills wise with death and birth.
There you may hear the heart that beats In streams, where music has its source; And in wild rocks of green retreats Behold the silent soul of force.
Above the love that emanates From human passion, and reflects The flesh, must be the love that waits On Nature, whose high call elects
None to her secrets save the few Who hold that facts are far less real Than dreams, with which all facts indue Themselves approaching the Ideal.
Gramarye
There are some things that entertain me more Than men or books; and to my knowledge seem A key of Poetry, made of magic lore Of childhood, opening many a fabled door Of superstition, mystery, and dream Enchantment locked of yore.
For, when through dusking woods my pathway lies, Often I feel old spells, as o'er me flits The bat, like some black thought that, troubled, flies Round some dark purpose; or before me cries The owl that, like an evil conscience, sits A shadowy voice and eyes.
Then, when down blue canals of cloudy snow The white moon oars her boat, and woods vibrate With crickets, lo, I hear the hautboys blow Of Elf-land; and when green the fireflies glow, See where the goblins hold a Fairy Fête With lanthorn row on row.
Strange growths, that ooze from long-dead logs and spread A creamy fungus, where the snail, uncoiled, And fat slug feed at morn, are Pixy bread Made of the yeasted dew; the lichens red, Besides these grown, are meat the Brownies broiled Above a glow-worm bed.
The smears of silver on the webs that line The tree's crook'd roots, or stretch, white-wove, within The hollow stump, are stains of Faëry wine Spilled on the cloth where Elf-land sat to dine, When night beheld them drinking, chin to chin, O' the moon's fermented shine.
What but their chairs the mushrooms on the lawn, Or toadstools hidden under flower and fern, Tagged with the dotting dew! – With knees updrawn Far as his eyes, have I not come upon Puck seated there? but scarcely 'round could turn Ere, presto! he was gone.
And so though Science from the woods hath tracked The Elfin; and with prosy lights of day Unhallowed all his haunts; and, dulling, blacked Our eyesight, still hath Beauty never lacked For seers yet; who, in some wizard way, Prove Fancy real as Fact.