Nation and Patriotism

Snow


North country scene:
A hundred leagues locked in ice,
A thousand leagues of whirling snow.
Both sides of the Great Wall
One single white immensity.
The Yellow River's swift current
Is stilled from end to end.
The mountains dance like silver snakes
And the highlands* charge like wax-hued elephants,
Vying with heaven in stature.
On a fine day, the land,
Clad in white, adorned in red,
Grows more enchanting.


This land so rich in beauty
Has made countless heroes bow in homage.
But alas! Chin Shih-huang and Han Wu-ti
Were lacking in literary grace,
And Tang Tai-tsung and Sung Tai-tsu
Had little poetry in their souls;
And Genghis Khan,
Proud Son of Heaven for a day,
Knew only shooting eagles, bow outstretched
All are past and gone!
For truly great men
Look to this age alone.

Reply to Comrade Kuo Mo-Jo

On this tiny globe
A few flies dash themselves against the wall,
Humming without cease,
Sometimes shrilling,
Sometimes moaning.
Ants on the locust tree assume a great-nation swagger
And mayflies lightly plot to topple the giant tree.
The west wind scatters leaves over Changan,
And the arrows are flying, twanging.
So many deeds cry out to be done,
And always urgently;
The world rolls on,
Time presses.
Ten thousand years are too long,
Seize the day, seize the hour!
The Four Seas are rising, clouds and waters raging,
The Five Continents are rocking, wind and thunder roaring.
Our force is irresistible,
Away with all pests!

Militia Women Inscription on a Photograph

How bright and brave they look, shouldering five-foot rifles
On the parade ground lit up by the first gleams of day.
China's daughters have high-aspiring minds,
They love their battle array, not silks and satins.

Chingkangshan


Below the hills fly our flags and banners,
Above the hilltops sound our bugles and drums.
The foe encircles us thousands strong,
Steadfastly we stand our ground.
Already our defence is iron-clad,
Now our wills unite like a fortress.
From Huangyangchieh roars the thunder of guns,
Word comes the enemy has fled into the night.

Against the First Encirclement Campaign

Forests blaze red beneath the frosty sky,
The wrath of Heaven's armies soars to the clouds.
Mist veils Lungkang, its thousand peaks blurred.
All cry out in unison:
Our van has taken Chang Hui-tsan!
The enemy returns to Kiangsi two hundred thousand strong,
Fumes billowing in the wind in mid-sky.
Workers and peasants are wakened in their millions
To fight as one man,
Under the riot of red flags round the foot of Puchou !

My People

The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.


The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people.


Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

Negro Speaks of Rivers

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.


I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln


went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Let America be America Again

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.


(America never was America to me.)


Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.


(It never was America to me.)


O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.


(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")


Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?


I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.


I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!


I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.


Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings



In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."


The free?


Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.


O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.


Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!


O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!


Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

The Resurgence (Islamic Lyric)

There sounds the drum!
There on the ruined tower, dark and blank,
Flutters the once-mighty flag.
Raise your head, mussalmans,
Gird your loins and advance
The call of the New Age has come.


With the Kalma on your lips
And the sabre swinging against your hips,
With the fiery enthusiasm of Islam ill your
Shake off your lethargy and start.
With the love of Allah in your soul
Answer the call and take up your role.


There is nothing for you to dread.
You have that glorious amulet,
The Holy Quran, tied round your neck.
A pity that you overslept
And missed the Fazr prayer.
Neither did you awaken
When the Zohr did beckon.
And the Asr prayer you whiled away
In idleness and play.
The call for the Mughrib has also sounded.
You must hurry now to the Esha prayer.


Some room is still available there,
We are not really
Creatures of pomp and luxury.
Our Calipha once ru.led over half the universe
Dressed in clothes no better than beggers.
Once we only desired death
In the cause of our faith,


But now such a people as our's
Are numbed in a drunken stupor
While outside there rages a violent storm.


We had nothing but a dry piece of bread,
But we had a mighty faith and none did we dread,
A noble spirit of sacrifice we possessed.
And we moved from place to place without sleep or rest,
Always as victors great.


Let us bring back to our life
That faith and spirit of sacrifice:
Let the cry of Allah-o-Akbar
Resound in the lips of all.
Let the world tremble again
At the sound of that clarion call.


[Translation: Kabir Chowdhury]

The Muslims No Longer Rise

The Muslims no longer rise
With the same old fervour of faith,
With which they conquered the world apace


Burnt and bleak is the bower of birds
whose chirpings changed the fate of worlds,
And during the days of revolt
The Obedience to Allah brought!


No more is Siddiq's Sincerity!
No more is Umar's Sacrifice!
No more is Bilal's Faith!
No more is Ali's Zulfiqar! N
No more are Martyrs now
For Allah's Cause, to fight with vow


Our arms no longer strong!
Khalid, Musa and Tarik are gone!
Gone is the peacock's Throne!
To-day the beggars play the ruling role !


Islam only in the books,
And the Muslims in the graves.


[Original in Bangla: Jage na she loye ar; Kazi Nazrul Islam
Translation: Mizanur Rahman]

Struggle


You lived for so long,
Now once put your life on the line;
The same hands you use for only prayers,
With weapons let once those shine.


Tearing off the crescent from sky,
Decorate your flag that is crimson red;
Let the seniles live longer
You offer your precious life, go ahead.


[Original: Shadhona (Bengali) ,
Translation: Mohammad Omar Farooq]

Pioneers, O Pioneers

O you who look so soiled and weary,
Collect your armour for the struggle,
Your rusty shovels, heavy hammers,
To save the earth from dire disaster.


We have no time for sport or revels,
No leisure for procrastinating.
The war's begun in deadly earnest;
We've deeds to plant and crops to harvest.


I see the young on fire and marching
Onward past mountains, vales and rivers,
Unbent and proud man's heritage,
Freedom and honour, in their keeping.


The ancient East, inert, feeble,
A waits a voice to end its slumber.
We will once more awaken, rouse it,
And set it stirring, breathing, moving.


The murky past is dead and buried.
We must emerge from sunless caverns
Into broad uplands bright and shining,
Create a world of newer splendour.


We'll scale the peaks and cross the gorges,
And overcome what risks lie hidden.
We'll fell old trees to build our bridges
And go down in the mines for treasure.


We are awake, no longer sleeping;
We have descended from the plateaus,
Reckless of hungry wounded tigers
And we must move and look not backwards.


We are beholden to those countries,
Egypt and China, Spain and Norway,
Russia, Korea, who have broken
Their age-old chains and savoured freedom.


O Fortune's darlings, I, the poet,
Have nought to offer but my anguish,
My hopes, My dreams, the red blood dripping
From Within my heart beating wildly.


Invoke the gods of ruthless terror,
Shrink not from blood, as green and daring
You must unfurl your country's banner
Armed to the teeth and marching forward.


Listen! beloved fearless children;
Wild beasts and vultures squeak behind you,



And rotting corpses leer, or, frowning,
Earn praise from those who're scared of movement.


Let not these horrors daunt Or frighten;
But torch in hand advance, resistless;
The battlefield is strewn with martyrs
Who died in hundreds faces shining.


The earth is pulsing with a new life,
A tremor coursing through its arteries.
Ours is the strength of many armies;
Our comrades wait in every hamlet.


Sailors and ploughmen, slaves and masters,
Workers and lovers, waifs and prisoners,
Unhappy men who know no laughter-
They too are actors in Our drama.


The day that wanes, the night that follows,
The planets which you see revolving,
Children not born yet, our future soldiers,
They too are bound on this quest endless.


Sisters, awake, your brothers need you
They'll lag behind if you are missing;
Arise and join them, Jet the vanguard
Move forward, rank on rank in order.


I hear the sound of bells announcing
The coming age, when dreams and reveries
Will be fulfilled, and hopes turn rosy,
And we will reach our destination.


We have no use for lifeless knowledge
Stored in thick tomes; We want no false dreams
Or short-lived joys, bejewelled footwear,
Or cushioned thrones, no wealth that's rotten.


We shall survive on bread and water.
And sleep on hard floors, learn to hate those
Who are enslaved by greed, those gluttons;
We will go forward, we the fighters.


Do wipe away your tears, my comrades,
And rest a while if are weary,
Do not lose heart if night is falling,
Our will is firm, our aim is steady.


[Translation: Syed Sajjad Husain]

Make Islam strong, O God!

Make Islam strong, O God,
let the Muslim world again prosper.
Give it back its sultanate of old,

its ancient prowess and generous soul.

Once again bless Islam
with heroic Ali's sharp-edged Zulfiquar,
give it back its old Caliphs and hashmat,
its glorious Medina and Baghdad.

Bless it with Hamza and the mighty Walid,
give it back its Omar and its Harun-a!-Rashid,
bless it again with a noble Salahuddin,
let once more a holy war be waged

against this sinful world.

Give Islam again its Roomi and Saadi and Hafiz,
once more bless it with Khayyam and Tabriz,
give it again its Akbar and its Shahjehan,
bless it again with that dream in white marble,
the Tajmahal!


Give it a sense of fellow-feeling and unity,
its spirit of self-sacrifice and heroic mind,
let the Muslims of the world form a single community,
let its crescent-bedecked flag fly once again


in the sky.

[Original: Taufiq dao khoda islame; Translation: Kabir Chowdhury]

Day-Labourer


Your luxury cars are plying through the streets
And your big ships are cruising Over the Oceans.
The fast steam engines are running on railways,
The country is filled with plants and machinery:
Can you tell me whose contributions are all these?
With whose blood are your buildings
Painted red? Dismantle them and you'll find
On each piece of brick vividly written the names.
You may not know; but each and
Every grain of dust is aware of it,
The meaning of those roads, vessels, trains,
And of those decorative palaces.
The good days are coming soon:
Day after day your debts are being inflated
You must pay back those heavy debts.
Those who with hard labour broke the rugged hills
With hammer, shovel and pick-axe,
Their bones today are strewn 'on either side
Of those very roads. Those who, in order to render
You service, became day-labourers.
Those who covered their cherished body with dust
Only to carry you and your belongings,
They are indeed the real human beings,
they are the saints.
I sing their 'inner voice' through my songs.
Marching over their painful suffering breasts
The New Revolution will raise its new head.
You are reclining at ease
On the top of the third floor,
While we are rotting at the bottom;
Still you love to be
Addressed as 'My Lord'?
Absurd! That cannot be! !
The helm of this world must remain under
Those, whose mind and soul are soaked with
Sweet love for the motherland;
Those who journeyed with others through
The tiresome roads and covered their
Feet with dust; I shall pick up
That very dust from their feet and put it
on my head as a holy sacred offering.
Smeared with the blood of the pain stricken
Suffering humanity of the world
the new sun of the new Dawn is rising
above the horizon.
Break open today those ugly rusty doors
Of your narrow congested heart;
Take off those artificial garments of yours
Which look unnatural like coloured leather.
Look at the concentrated condensed air
Appearing deep blue in the sky,
Let them enter free in a frolicsome way



direct into your inner hearts -
Unlock all those obstructing clutches!
Let the entire blue Heaven fall down in our midst,
Let the moon, the sun and the stars shower on us.
Let all people of all times
and all climes come together
And stand up at the same confluence to listen to
The anthem of great unity under one flag-
If you torment here a single soul
The pain resounds in a crescendo
In the aggrieved hearts of all others.
Insult to a single person here means
Humiliating the whole of humanity
An insult to all of us.
Today is the day of upheaval
Against the heart-rending agony and pain
Of the great Human-beings of the world.

[Translation: Amir Hossain Chowdhury]

Parody On The Recorder’s Speech To His Grace The Duke Of Ormond, 4th July,
1711

THE RECORDER'S SPEECH EXPLAINED BY THE TORIES


An ancient metropolis, famous of late
For opposing the Church, and for nosing the State,
For protecting sedition and rejecting order,
Made the following speech by their mouth, the Recorder:
First, to tell you the name of this place of renown,
Some still call it Dublin, but most Forster's town.


THE SPEECH


May it please your Grace,
We cannot omit this occasion to tell,
That we love the Queen's person and government well;
Then next, to your Grace we this compliment make,
That our worships regard you, but 'tis for her sake:
Though our mouth be a Whig, and our head a Dissenter,
Yet salute you we must, 'cause you represent her:
Nor can we forget, sir, that some of your line
Did with mildness and peace in this government shine.
But of all your exploits, we'll allow but one fact,
That your Grace has procured us a Popery Act.
By this you may see that the least of your actions
Does conduce still the most to our satisfactions.
And lastly, because in the year eighty-eight
You did early appear in defence of our right,
We give no other proof of your zeal to your Prince;
So we freely forget all your services since.
It's then only we hope, that whilst you rule o'er us,
You'll tread in the steps of King William the glorious,
Whom we're always adoring, tho' hand over head,
For we owe him allegiance, although he be dead;
Which shows that good zeal may be founded in spleen,
Since a dead Prince we worship, to lessen the Queen.
And as for her Majesty, we will defend her
Against our hobgoblin, the Popish Pretender.
Our valiant militia will stoutly stand by her,
Against the sly Jack, and the sturdy High-flier.
She is safe when thus guarded, if Providence bless her,
And Hanover's sure to be next her successor.
Thus ended the speech, but what heart would not pity
His Grace, almost choked with the breath of the City!

Jack Frenchman’s Lamentation

Ye Commons and Peers,
Pray lend me your ears,
I'll sing you a song, (if I can,)
How Lewis le Grand
Was put to a stand,
By the arms of our gracious Queen Anne.


How his army so great,
Had a total defeat,
And close by the river Dender:
Where his grandchildren twain,
For fear of being slain,
Gallop'd off with the Popish Pretender.


To a steeple on high,
The battle to spy,
Up mounted these clever young men;
But when from the spire,
They saw so much fire,
Most cleverly came down again.


Then on horseback they got
All on the same spot,
By advice of their cousin Vendosme,
O Lord! cried out he,
Unto young Burgundy,
Would your brother and you were at home!


While this he did say,
Without more delay,
Away the young gentry fled;
Whose heels for that work,
Were much lighter than cork,
Though their hearts were as heavy as lead.


Not so did behave
Young Hanover brave,
In this bloody field I assure ye:
When his war-horse was shot
He valued it not,
But fought it on foot like a fury.


Full firmly he stood,
As became his high blood,
Which runs in his veins so blue:
For this gallant young man,
Being a-kin to QUEEN ANNE,
Did as (were she a man) she would do.


What a racket was here,
(I think 'twas last year,)
For a little misfortune in Spain!



For by letting 'em win,
We have drawn the puts in,
To lose all they're worth this campaign.


Though Bruges and Ghent
To Monsieur we lent,
With interest they shall repay 'em;
While Paris may sing,
With her sorrowful king,
Nunc dimittis instead of Te Deum.


From this dream of success,
They'll awaken, we guess,
At the sound of great Marlborough's drums,
They may think, if they will,
Of Ahnanza still,
But 'tis Blenheim wherever he comes.


O Lewis perplex'd,
What general next!
Thou hast hitherto changed in vain;
He has beat 'em all round,
If no new one's found,
He shall beat 'em over again.


We'll let Tallard out,
If he'll take t'other bout;
And much he's improved, let me tell ye,
With Nottingham ale
At every meal,
And good beef and pudding in belly.


But as losers at play,
Their dice throw away,
While the winners do still win on;
Let who will command,
Thou hadst better disband,
For, old Bully, thy doctors are gone.

Ballad


A WONDERFUL age
Is now on the stage:
I'll sing you a song, if I can,
How modern Whigs,
Dance forty-one jigs,
But God bless our gracious Queen Anne.


The kirk with applause
Is established by laws
As the orthodox church of the nation.
The bishops do own
It's as good as their own.
And this, Sir, is call'd moderation.


It's no riddle now
To let you see how
A church by oppression may speed;
Nor is't banter or jest,
That the kirk faith is best
On the other side of the Tweed.


For no soil can suit
With every fruit,
Even so, Sir, it is with religion;
The best church by far
Is what grows where you are,
Were it Mahomet's ass or his pigeon.


Another strange story
That vexes the Tory,
But sure there's no mystery in it,
That a pension and place
Give communicants grace,
Who design to turn tail the next minute.


For if it be not strange,
That religion should change,
As often as climates and fashions;
Then sure there's no harm,
That one should conform.
To serve their own private occasions.


Another new dance,
Which of late they advance,
Is to cry up the birth of Pretender,
And those that dare own
The queen heir to the crown,
Are traitors, not fit to defend her.


The subject's most loyal
That hates the blood royal,
And they for employments have merit,



Who swear queen and steeple
Were made by the people,
And neither have right to inherit.


The monarchy's fixt,
By making on't mixt,
And by non-resistance o'erthrown;
And preaching obedience
Destroys our allegiance,
And thus the Whigs prop up the throne.


That viceroy is best,
That would take off the test,
And made a sham speech to attempt it;
But being true blue,
When he found 'twould not do,
Swore, damn him, if ever he meant it.


'Tis no news that Tom Double
The nation should bubble,
Nor is't any wonder or riddle,
That a parliament rump
Should play hop, step, and jump,
And dance any jig to his fiddle.


But now, sir, they tell,
How Sacheverell,
By bringing old doctrines in fashion,
Hath, like a damn'd rogue,
Brought religion in vogue,
And so open'd the eyes of the nation.


Then let's pray without spleen,
May God bless the queen,
And her fellow-monarchs the people;
May they prosper and thrive,
Whilst I am alive,
And so may the church with the steeple.

Sonnet 08

VIII

Captain or Colonel, or Knight in Arms,
Whose chance on these defenceless dores may sease,
If ever deed of honour did thee please,
Guard them, and him within protect from harms,
He can requite thee, for he knows the charms
That call Fame on such gentle acts as these,
And he can spred thy Name o're Lands and Seas,
What ever clime the Suns bright circle warms.
Lift not thy spear against the Muses Bowre,
The great Emathian Conqueror bid spare
The house of Pindarus, when Temple and Towre
Went to the ground: And the repeated air
Of sad Electra's Poet had the power
To save th' Athenian Walls from ruine bare.


Notes:
Camb. autograph supplies title, When the assault was intended
to the city.
3 If deed of honour did thee ever please, 1673.

Psalm 87

Among the holy Mountains high
Is his foundation fast,
There Seated in his Sanctuary,
His Temple there is plac't.
Sions fair Gates the Lord loves more
Then all the dwellings faire
Of Jacobs Land, though there be store,
And all within his care.
City of God, most glorious things
Of thee abroad are spoke;
I mention Egypt, where proud Kings
Did our forefathers yoke,
I mention Babel to my friends,
Philistia full of scorn,
And Tyre with Ethiops utmost ends,
Lo this man there was born:
But twise that praise shall in our ear
Be said of Sion last
This and this man was born in her,
High God shall fix her fast.
The Lord shall write it in a Scrowle
That ne're shall be out-worn
When he the Nations doth enrowle
That this man there was born.
Both they who sing, and they who dance
With sacred Songs are there,
In thee fresh brooks, and soft streams glance
And all my fountains clear.

Sonnet. On Peace

O PEACE! and dost thou with thy presence bless
The dwellings of this war-surrounded Isle;
Soothing with placid brow our late distress,
Making the triple kingdom brightly smile?
Joyful I hail thy presence; and I hail
The sweet companions that await on thee;
Complete my joy let not my first wish fail,
Let the sweet mountain nymph thy favourite be,
With England's happiness proclaim Europa's Liberty.
O Europe! let not sceptred tyrants see
That thou must shelter in thy former state;
Keep thy chains burst, and boldly say thou art free;
Give thy kings law leave not uncurbed the great ;
So with the horrors past thou'lt win thy happier fate!

Sonnet XVII. Happy Is England

Happy is England! I could be content
To see no other verdure than its own;
To feel no other breezes than are blown
Through its tall woods with high romances blent:
Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment
For skies Italian, and an inward groan
To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,
And half forget what world or worldling meant.
Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;
Enough their simple loveliness for me,
Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging:
Yet do I often warmly burn to see
Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,
And float with them about the summer waters.

Yorktown


YORKTOWN.
FROM Yorktown's ruins, ranked and still,
Two lines stretch far o'er vale and hill:
Who curbs his steed at head of one?
Hark! the low murmur: Washington!
Who bends his keen, approving glance,
Where down the gorgeous line of France
Shine knightly star and plume of snow?
Thou too art victor, Rochambeau!
The earth which bears this calm array
Shook with the war-charge yesterday,
Ploughed deep with hurrying hoof and wheel,
Shot-sown and bladed thick with steel;
October's clear and noonday sun
Paled in the breath-smoke of the gun,
And down night's double blackness fell,
Like a dropped star, the blazing shell.
Now all is hushed: the gleaming lines
Stand moveless as the neighboring pines;
While through them, sullen, grim, and slow,
The conquered hosts of England go:
O'Hara's brow belies his dress,
Gay Tarleton's troop rides bannerless:
Shout, from thy fired and wasted homes,
Thy scourge, Virginia, captive comes!
Nor thou alone: with one glad voice
Let all thy sister States rejoice;
Let Freedom, in whatever clime
She waits with sleepless eye her time,
Shouting from cave and mountain wood
Make glad her desert solitude,
While they who hunt her quail with fear;
The New World's chain lies broken here!
But who are they, who, cowering, wait
Within the shattered fortress gate?
Dark tillers of Virginia's soil,
Classed with the battle's common spoil,
With household stuffs, and fowl, and swine,
With Indian weed and planters' wine,
With stolen beeves, and foraged corn, —
Are they not men, Virginian born?
Oh, veil your faces, young and brave!
Sleep, Scammel, in thy soldier grave!
Sons of the Northland, ye who set
Stout hearts against the bayonet,
And pressed with steady footfall near
The moated battery's blazing tier,
Turn your scarred faces from the sight,
Let shame do homage to the right!
Lo! fourscore years have passed; and where
The Gallic bugles stirred the air,
And, through breached batteries, side by side,



To victory stormed the hosts allied,
And brave foes grounded, pale with pain,
The arms they might not lift again,
As abject as in that old day
The slave still toils his life away.
Oh, fields still green and fresh in story,
Old days of pride, old names of glory,
Old marvels of the tongue and pen,
Old thoughts which stirred the hearts of men,
Ye spared the wrong; and over all
Behold the avenging shadow fall!
Your world-wide honor stained with shame, —
Your freedom's self a hollow name!
Where's now the flag of that old war?
Where flows its stripe? Where burns its star?
Bear witness, Palo Alto's day,
Dark Vale of Palms, red Monterey,
Where Mexic Freedom, young and weak,
Fleshes the Northern eagle's beak;
Symbol of terror and despair,
Of chains and slaves, go seek it there!
Laugh, Prussia, midst thy iron ranks!
Laugh, Russia, from thy Neva's banks!
Brave sport to see the fledgling born
Of freedom by its parent torn!
Safe now is Speilberg's dungeon cell,
Safe drear Siberia's frozen hell:
With Slavery's flag o'er both unrolled,
What of the New World fears the Old?

Voice Of New England

UP the hillside, down the glen,
Rouse the sleeping citizen;
Summon out the might of men!
Like a lion growling low,
Like a night-storm rising slow,
Like the tread of unseen foe;
It is coming, it is nigh!
Stand your homes and altars by;
On your own free thresholds die.
Clang the bells in all your spires;
On the gray hills of your sires
Fling to heaven your signal-fires.
From Wachuset, lone and bleak,
Unto Berkshire's tallest peak,
Let the flame-tougued heralds speak.
Oh, for God and duty stand,
Heart to heart and hand to hand,
Round the old graves of the land.
Whoso shrinks or falters now,
Whoso to the yoke would bow,
Brand the craven on his brow!
Freedom's soil hath only place
For a free and fearless race,
None for traitors false and base.
Perish party, perish clan;
Strike together while ye can,
Like the arm of one strong man.
Like that angel's voice sublime,
Heard above a world of crime,
Crying of the end of time;
With one heart and with one mouth,
Let the North unto the South
Speak the word befitting both:
'What though Issachar be strong!
Ye may load his back with wrong
Overmuch and over long:
'Patience with her cup o'errun,
With her weary thread outspun,
Murmurs that her work is done.
'Make our Union-bond a chain,
Weak as tow in Freedom's strain
Link by link shall snap in twain.
'Vainly shall your sand-wrought rope
Bind the starry cluster up,
Shattered over heaven's blue cope!
'Give us bright though broken rays,
Rather than eternal haze,
Clouding o'er the full-orbed blaze.
'Take your land of sun and bloom;
Only leave to Freedom room
For her plough, and forge, and loom;
'Take your slavery-blackened vales;



Leave us but our own free gales,
Blowing on our thousand sails.
'Boldly, or with treacherous art,
Strike the blood-wrought chain apart;
Break the Union's mighty heart;
'Work the ruin, if ye will;
Pluck upon your heads an ill
Which shall grow and deepen still.
'With your bondman's right arm bare,
With his heart of black despair,
Stand alone, if stand ye dare!
'Onward with your fell design;
Dig the gulf and draw the line:
Fire beneath your feet the mine:
'Deeply, when the wide abyss
Yawns between your land and this,
Shall ye feel your helplessness.
'By the hearth, and in the bed,
Shaken by a look or tread,
Ye shall own a guilty dread.
'And the curse of unpaid toil,
Downward through your generous soil
Like a fire shall burn and spoil.
'Our bleak hills shall bud and blow,
VInes our rocks shall overgrow,
Plenty in our valleys flow; —
'And when vengeance clouds your skies,
Hither shall ye turn your eyes,
As the lost on Paradise!
'We but ask our rocky strand,
Freedom's true and brother band,
Freedom's strong and honest hand;
'Valleys by the slave untrod,
And the Pilgrim's mountain sod,
Blessed of our fathers' God!'

To Ronge

Strike home, strong-hearted man! Down to the root
Of old oppression sink the Saxon steel.
Thy work is to hew down. In God's name then
Put nerve into thy task. Let other men
Plant, as they may, that better tree whose fruit
The wounded bosom of the Church shall heal.
Be thou the image-breaker. Let thy blows
Fall heavy as the Suabian's iron hand,
On crown or crosier, which shall interpose
Between thee and the weal of Fatherland.
Leave creeds to closet idlers. First of all,
Shake thou all German dream-land with the fall
Of that accursed tree, whose evil trunk
Was spared of old by Erfurt's stalwart monk.
Fight not with ghosts and shadows. Let us hear
The snap of chain-links. Let our gladdened ear
Catch the pale prisoner's welcome, as the light
Follows thy axe-stroke, through his cell of night.
Be faithful to both worlds; nor think to feed
Earth's starving millions with the husks of creed.
Servant of Him whose mission high and holy
Was to the wronged, the sorrowing, and the lowly,
Thrust not his Eden promise from our sphere,
Distant and dim beyond the blue sky's span;
Like him of Patmos, see it, now and here,
The New Jerusalem comes down to man
Be warned by Luther's error. Nor like him,
When the roused Teuton dashes from his limb
The rusted chain of ages, help to bind
His hands for whom thou claim'st the freedom of
the mind