Part 2

Forming the great Atlantic, see God take The mist from woe's white mountain, spring and stream, The breath of man in frost, the spiral lean From roof-cracked caves where, though the heart may break, The soul will not lie torpid, like the snake,-- And battle smoke. On them He breathes with dream And, Lo! an Angel with a sword agleam 'Twix the Old World and New for Justice's sake.

What sea so broad, as that from Human weeping? Or Sun so flaming, as the Angel's sword Of Human and Devine Wills in accord? There, with sword-flash of myriad waves, joy-leaping, Shall loom forever, Freedom's watch and ward, With the New World in his Seraphic keeping.

HUMAN FREEDOM

This is thy glory, Man, that thou art free. 'Tis in thy freedom, thy resemblance lies To thy Creator. Nature, which, tide-wise, Is flood and ebb, bounds not sky flight for thee. Lo! as the sun arises from the sea, Startling all beauty God-ward, thou dost rise With mind to God in heaven, from finite ties, And there, in freedom, thou art great as He.

Meeting thy God with mind, 'tis thine to choose, Wheather to follow him with love and soar, Or dream Him myth and, rather than adore, Plunge headlong into Nature's whirl and ooze. Thine is full freedom. Ah! could God do more To liken thee to Him, and love, infuse?

THE STARS

God loves the stars; else why star-shape the dew For the unbreathing, shy, heart-hiding rose? And when earth darkens, and the North wind blows, Why into stars, flake every cloud's black brew? What fitter forms for longings high and true, Man's hopes, ideals, than bright orbs like those Asbine from Nature's dawn to Nature's close, In clusters, prisming every dazzling hue?

Nor is the Sun with harvests in its heat, And that, sky-hidden, makes the moon at night, An earth-ward cascade for its leaps of light, More real, or a world force more complete, Than Faith and Hope, that brake through clouds with sight Of evil's foil and ultimate defeat.

THE GENESIS OF FREEDOM

I

O Freedom! Born amid resplendent spheres, And, with God-like creative power, endowed, Hast thou, to human life's blue depths, not vowed A splendor, not alone like that which 'pears At present, where the upper asure clears, But that the Nebulae will yet unshroud? I hear thy far off cry where thou art lone, A John the Baptist: "Lo! one greater nears."

What is this Greater--this which is to meet The planets and ascend high, high and higher? The right of human spirit to aspire And mount, unhampered--and by act, complete Creations harmony, as by desire, Proclaimed by brain with throb, by heart with beat.

II

In thy descent through azures, all aglow With circling spheres, the beauty of each blaze, And grandeur, then, of all, entrance thy gaze. Thou thinkest, why not thus all life below? Perceiving, then that all the breezes blow Upward and onward, in the skyey maze, Thou wouldst go back and start with them, to raise A new creation from chaotic throe.

Thou seest plainly that without that breeze, The breath of God, all that thou couldst create, Were lifeless, save to turn on thee with hate, And chase an age with grim atrocities; But with that breath, thou couldst raise life to mate The Planet's splendor, in the azures Peace.

III

O Freedom! as thy sister spirit, Spring, Pausing above the earth, sees every hue Of her prismatic crown, reflected true In forests and in fields, and fledgling's wing, So thou dost see thy spirit glorying With faith, that man is more than Nature's spew-- In human spirit that, from beauty drew First breath to know that soul is more than thing.

O Freedom! fain we follow thee in flight From chaos to God's glory round and round, Aloft! how like an elk pursued by hound, To brinks thou springest toward the distant height And, on bent knees, then speedest without sound, Like Faith through Death, till, lo! thou dost alight.

THE PILGRIM FATHERS

"Ye Wreaches, who would lay proud England's head Upon the block, and raise her features, then, Bloodless and ghastly, for the scorn of men! Begone forever. Go where terrors spread Their sea and forest mouths to crush you dead. Oh, how the clouds shall crimson from each glen, A roar with blaze, and flame search out each fen, If back to us, yea e'er are vomited."

To this Parental blessing and God-speed, The Pilgrim Fathers gladly made reply: "These waves are Conscience's wings along the sky; They carry us to God, whose call we heed. The further from thy coast of hate and lie, The nearer God. On! On!--that is our creed."

PLYMOUTH ROCK

O Sun and Stars! bear ye Earth's thanks to God; For Oh! what waters, slaking every thirst Of heart, mind, spirit, in long cascades burst From Plymouth Rock, when struck by Freedom's rod! No wanderer in the burning sand, unshod, Plods man with lolling tongue, dog-like, as erst; For lo! this fountain, deepening from the first, Floods Earth's old wells and greens Life's sand to sod.

Oh, more those waters than the Font of Youth, For which, through field and swamp, the Spaniard ran! For they are clear with God's eternal truth Of fatherhood, hence brotherhood of man, And are no dream. They quench all human drouth And cleanse man's desert dust of sect and clan.

THE CATHOLICS IN MARYLAND

Of Expeditions in the Arctic Past, All honor to the one that reached the pole And formed a settlement where every soul Enjoyed full freedom. There above the blast, How musical the bell, by Justice cast! It welcomed all to come. It ceased to toll After a while, but why? Those, welcomed, stole And dragged it where the ice formed thick and fast.

Of Arctic Expeditions there is none So profitable to the human race As that toward Freedom's pole, and hence men face All storms to reach it. If they fail, the sun Has but one joy--to thaw out wrecks, and trace Man's progress where alone it can be done.

A FOREST FOR THE KING'S HAWKS

Say, what is Ma-jest-y without externals? Is Burke's analysis not right--"A Jest"? Ah, but a jest, at which the poor, oft pressed To their last heart-drop, laugh not, like court journals. The King needs coin, and, where he sowed no kernels, Wants the whole forest for his hawks to nest And breed in, and became an annual pest; In this the farmers show that they discern ills.

Hark! blares the tyrant's horn and, in a thrice, The Tories gather. Eagerly they band, For is the King not greater than the land? And rows with royalty, a rabble's vice? Besides, what creeping tribes at his command, And Spies and Hessians at a ferret's price!

TO ARMS SHOUTS FREEDOM

To Arms! shouts Freedom to her sons. Behold! How, like Job's war-horse, they gulp down the ground To battle! What care they how foes surround? Oh, joy to Celts, nigh half the true and bold! There, with the roar of all their wrongs uprolled From ancient depths, they dash with billow-bound Up rock and summit, and through cave and mound, Spurning both Tyrants' steel and Treason's gold.

No tide are they to ebb in heart and spirit. If dashed back, they return with all the force Of six dark sea's momentum on its course For vengeance on the vile, who disinherit The human-being--shut off every source Of happiness, or let but Serf's draw near it!

BRITISH SOLDIERY

The wounded Sidney, who despite his thirst, Gave water to his comrade, shines, a lamp In the Cimerian dark of Britain's camp. Even the Raleigh, who so finely versed, Preferred to such a light, the flame accursed Of sword and torch, to please a royal vamp. Is British triumph in its world-wide tramp The Hell, still "lower than lowest"--Milton's worst?

Lord Christ! is British soldiery the swine, In whose gross forms the fiends, exercised, flew? Oh! watch them through the ages, they pursue The noble and devour all things Divine. Look! they illustrate horrors, which prove true The Hell, which Milton's glimpse could not outline.

AMPHIBIOUS BARRY

Look! Freedom glares and pallid as a ghost, Except for gashes on her brow and breast, And faint from hunger, sits awhile to rest. Amphibious Barry, bold on sea or coast, Mounts and spurs darkness to the Tory Host, And, like an Indian rider with head prest Down to his steed's hot neck in prowess test, Plucks from the ground, a prize he well may boast.

Oh, as the sun's smile passing through the rain, Shines forth a double arch, so, Barry's deed, Refleshing Freedom's bones made gaunt by need, Shines through the Ages; aye, and shines forth twain-- Both for America, from Britain Freed, And Erin, still choked black in Britain's chain!

FREEDOM'S TRIUMPH

With France and Erin heartening Washington, Prone Freedom rose, with head above the cloud. Beholding her transfigured, Thrall is cowed. His minions are bewildered. How they run! Some follow him against the rising sun; Others plod north. The Torries' vaster crowd Hide in dark places, and like Satan, proud, They hate the glory, that the true have won.

O Milton! Thou beheldest them. Thine ear Caught their defiance and thy lightening pen, In shattering the dark in evil's den, Caught hope amphibious from leer to leer Of those grim shadows, plotting to regain Lost Paradise, or bane its atmosphere.

WASHINGTON'S ARMY AND BARRY'S NAVY

Who loosed our land from Britain's numbing hold? "They who had naught to loose," the Tories say; That is--not menials in the King's sure pay, Nor mongrels, chained to guard their master's gold. They were True Men. Their spirit, young and bold, With dreams played follow-master, climbing day From deepest night, to catch the Sun and stay His glory for the World, then whiteing cold.

Though darkness be far vaster than the lamp, It is the beams that lead to progress, count. "To manhood, with the virtues to surmount Such darknesses as Valley Forge's camp, And seas, deep hell's sky-reaching, broadening fount, Honor!" The ages shout on Triumph's tramp.

THE SUNKEN CONTINENT

When hurled from heaven, 'tis thought, the fiends of pride Caught Earth to brake their fall. The regions gave And sank with all the hosts beneath the wave! 'Tis in those sunken regions which divide The new world of the resolute and brave, From the old world of king and abject slave, Where Torries, counterfeiting Satan, hide.

Clinging, like lava, to a lifeless limb, They think the phosphorescence of the bark Is morning, which the long-belated lark Is hastening to welcome with his hymn; Else, they form poisons and breathe from the dark, Miasma mist to make the sun-rise dim.

ELISHA BROWN

Old Guard of Boston! Halt; Right Face; Attention! Order One: quell the weeds in rankest riot Where lies Elisha Brown, in conscience, quiet. This Brown was John's precursor. Ye, on pension For ancient glory, now do duty. Mention Elisha's name for countersign--and why, it? Because with him, wrong, seen, was to defy it, And act, else, was beyond his comprehension.

Against his home's invasion this man held A red-coat regiment for seventeen days, Which was a spark to help start freedom's blaze And, therefore, Order Two: the weeds all quelled, Stand sentries till a statue takes your place And throngs shout, "Bravo, Brown!" as 'tis unveiled!

EVACUATION DAY

What is it that today we celebrate With school recital, banquet and parade Of our achievements, pageanting each trade? The ousting of the English--train and trait-- And posting, then, sharp-eyed, eternal hate To watch with Josuah's son above his head, That night come not to help them re-invade, However wide, we swing our ocean gate.

If not un-Englishing America in mind And heart forever, vain the shrieks Of Freedom, eagling back to dawn's first streaks. Oh, yea, the sun stands, and the night afar Holds Thrall, whose craft would swamp our noblest peaks And leave but bubbling mud show where they are!

MANHATTA

Manhatta! Glory flings his arms round thee And proudly holds thee in his high caress. What charms him, Mother, is thy nobleness Of spirit. How his features beam to see Thy scorn dash in the bay the tyrant's tea, And hear thee call to Boston: "Do no less; Else on sunlight, heart, soul--all we possess-- Will tyrant's next exact their deadly fee."

In thee I glory. Can the world else boast A harbor, like thy heart, for every sail In flight from sea-toss, white with horror's gale, Or icebergs from despondence Polar coast? Oh, fleets whose throngs, glad Freedom well may hail; For, landing, they became her staunchest host.

THE BURNING OF WASHINGTON CITY BY THE BRITISH

With what wild glee, the British set on fire Yon Capital, beholding in its flames, America, robed in her deeds and fames, In death throes at the stake of England's ire? Though that was long ago and, then no pyre, The stake still stands; 'tis Anglo-Saxon claims, And Arnolds, bearing infamy's last names, Tilt schools to raise the stake flames high and higher.

Oh, sight to strike the coming ages dead, My country, were a cloud, thy mocking crown, And schools, ignited by Truth's lamps hurled down, To feed that cloud, like craters, inly red! What! mock with cloud, Thy land and sea renown And Washington, God's Holy Spirit--known By the unerring World Light, that it shed?

THE LAND OF THE GREAT SPIRIT

Behold Ye Here the Happy Hunting Grounds, Where the Great Spirit, called Democracy, Sets every heart and soul forever free, An Equity, not royal grant, sets bounds. No Phaeton attempting Phoebus rounds And burning up earth's grass and forestry, Is lust for power; 'tis love for liberty, With bloom and birds for wheel-sparks, here resounds.

It is the land of Spirit. "Ye who enter, Abandon first all fratricidal hate," Proclaims the edict, blazoned o'er each gate. There see all tribes chase truth to joy--the center Convexing broad and broader, as more great Their numbers from where prejudice is mentor.

THE BLIGHT TO SPRING

Hark, 'tis the sea! How leonine its roar! But, oh, how more the lion on a height, As there he glares and listens for the night, Having devoured day's clouds from shore to shore! Now grows his mane of billows, high and hoar. What scents he? Potencies escaping sight, Till, like the cold, they icily alight Upon a land where all was spring before.

The sun darts under earth and east again, What sees he? First the lion at earth's brink With head down to the stream of stars to drink; And then, arising to his zenith ken, Sees that which makes his high, warm spirit sink-- The blight to spring, blown here from England's fen.

THE SCORN OF HUMAN RIGHTS

What is the blight to spring that kills the seed And raises spectres, so that stars cry "See!" Aghast at forests, white or shadowy? The scorn of human rights, that can but lead The world from doom to doom! and for what mead? A bronze for rain and rust, or effigy For nibbling minutes--ah, not hours!--these flee To life's progression--truth and kindly deed.

Look! How this scorn holds freemen in the dark, Except for a flare at will that, then, the throng, Reduced to dust, may rise and whirl along The lift and drop of glitter, without spark To set the spring a-crackling with bird song, Till bud and angel both come out to hark!

NOT THIS OUR COUNTRY'S GLORY

O Country of the Sun's warm plenteous hand To every germ of virtue, how below Thy progress, mope Gold Mongers to and fro, Who think they're vaulting from sunlight so grand, It forms thy chiefest glory. Closely scanned, They are gross worms, each with the thought to grow "The Conqueror," as staged by Edgar Poe For darking planets and a world, Last Manned.

Those worms that, moving, think they move the earth, Or, under Growth's equestrian statue, think They hold the horse and hero from the brink, Are pitifully not a glance's worth, As of thy glory; they but foul the chink, If not of thee in warming Good to birth.

AMERICA'S GLORY NO FUGITIVE

I

How weird a whisper! 'tis from Wallabout. 'Tis glory hoarse with calling: "Raise those hulks Where writhe my faithful." See! the tory skulks Behind the sun who, stooping to fill out Their throats with his god-breath, to swell the shout Of a free people, finds the brave in bulks, Strewn and held fast where Darkness, beaten, sulks That thrall has been forever put to rout.

Those mangled thousands are not dead; they live, Refashioned men by freedom. Is the tory Behind the sun, to mock me, who am Glory, Being the lifted life those martyrs give? He creeps beneath the sun and, ghastly gory, Crys out: "Thou yet shall be the fugitive".

II

Oh, weirder grows the whisper into word, As sharp as lightening, and as broad of reach, As seas, flung down by God to every beach Where thirsts a sparrow, or a bleating herd! There is no soul through out the land, not stirred; For, oh, to glory God gives his own speech When darkness, raised by Gold, declares that each, Hulk-held, is good but for the wolf and bird.

Is Gold grown conscious, now the Country's King That, at his beck, the blood for Freedom spilt Shall be accursed, and I, then, for the guilt Of dropping not with thud, as he with ring At Darkness' feet, be shut in mud and silt Forever and with stars, cease, beaconing?

III

Oh, as the earth in discord and in dark, When struck by Love on high with will for mace, Keeps rattling till each mote finds its true place, And mountain, fledged with groves, vies with the lark To reach the sunrise; so the madness stark Of gold, dethroning blood as God's best grace, When struck by Glory's voice drops Nadir-base, And blood for Freedom spilt, forms heaven's blue arc.

The shouts of millions shake Oblivion's mire And raise Thrall's Hulks. Look! Justice's stooping sun, Seeing in agony's each, a Washington, Breaths life in them, and, over Brooklyn's spire And New York's Babel Tower, they, one by one, Hold Liberty's broading Torch of quenchless fire.

HATE THOU NOT ANY MAN

Hate thou not any man, for at the worst, He still is brother. Will a glance not find Whole peoples alchemied from heart and mind To steal projectiles by a craft, accursed By Human Nature? Aye, for, as they burst At dusk, or midnight, slamming Heaven behind And crashing Hell wide open, 'tis mankind Is shattered and quick-gulping grave slake thirst.

Hate thou no man, but scorn all crafts, that smelt The heart and mind for huge projectiles, shattered When bursting grandly that some pride be flattered. Nature beholds not Saxon, Slav, nor Celt; She only sees the Human fragments scattered, And, covering them, her eyes to rivers melt.

THE CELTIC SOUL CRY

I

O Freedom! Have I ever been untrue? When, to thy moan of hunger anywhere, Have I been deaf? Was I not quick to share My little, nay, give all! for oh! I knew Thy beauty, and my love such passion grew At thy distresses,--What would I not dare! So, though the bellow, like a grizzly bear, Reared up before me, on to thee I flew.

O Freedom! Is thy beauty without heart, Or sense of justice? Unto whom art thou Indebted for thine arm, encircling now The world, sun-like, more than to me? My part I glory in, for I have kept my vow. I hold thee now to thine, if true thou art.

II

Speak Freedom! When a haggard fugitive, Thy dwelling was a swamp, who first to trace Thy crimson footprints to thy hiding place? With signs thou hadst not many days to live, I found thee. Had the sun more heart to give To warm thee, than I gave? Ah, then and there Thy heart said to my heart; "Ill would I fare Without thee. I give love for love, believe".

Thy silence, when in glory, troubles me. Oh! warm blood dashed back cold, chills to the bone! What do I ask for? Only Erin's own, That which God gave her, and, if true it be, Thou art the minister of justice grown, Thy gratitude should thunder God's decree.

III

What! Why bemoan one island in the sea, When I can range like mountains, or, the sun, Above all clouds, and, rosy from my run To God, like morn, chant praise, since flesh of thee? Oh, yea, my pride and transport, verily, Is, thou and I eternally are one; And this god-passion which no power can stun, I owe to her, who gave her soul to me.

Oh, when I see her golden hair, adrift On sorrow's sea, like weeds rent from their reef, And know she breathes with her sublime belief, It crazes me that thou, when thou mightst lift Her saintly features, and dry them of grief, Wads't not, but waitest for the tide to shift.

IV

America! 'Tis not thy mines of gold, Nor streams from mounts to meadows, like God's hand From out the heavens, a-flash across the land In long, deep sweeps to quicken winter's mould To reaps of ripeness,--that mine eyes behold, Invoking thee; for these are mere shore-sand To the broad ocean of thy spirit grand, Forming for man a new world for the old.

'Tis Liberty, to whose most blessed birth The stars all lead, rejoicing, which souls thee With God's compassion for humanity,-- That I invoke; and, now, when all the earth Bears palms and chants hosannas--what! shall she, The most devout, be shut from Freedom's mirth?

BRITISH GLORY IN KIPLING'S "BOOTS"

All English glory is in "Kipling's Boots." O English People! read that poem true, And answer,--are those maddening men not you? Oh, not yea few, who gather all the loots, But yea vast legions, lured to be recruits To march, march, march and march with naught in view But boots, boots, boots with blood and mud soaked through,-- And, after ages, with out rest, or fruits!

"Boots, boots, boots, and no discharge from war,"-- That is the Empire's anthem. Brass it out, Ye Orchestras! But oh, leave not in doubt Its import, Kipling,--that 'tis maelstrom roar-- 'Tis England's streams of home-life, world about And down a gulf, for Greed and Pride on shore!

TO THE ENGLISH PEOPLE

If deaf to Shelley's loudest sky-lark strain, His rage at tyrants, and to Byron's thong, Nerve-proof, how wake the English to the wrong Done their true selves, no less than to the slain, When willing weapons for Ambition's gain? Aye, weapons only; for, to whom belong The minds of England, and treed fields of song-- Nay, all but grave-ground, grudged by hill and plain?

O English People, whom the crafty class Has huddled into graves from sight and sound Of what God hands you, and, with pence, or pound, Lids down your wild dead stare,--wake! why so crass? See in the Celts spring-burst from underground, The Human Resurrection come to pass.

SHAKESPEARE

Oh, what are England's lines of lords and kings, Shakespeare, to thine, a-throb with thought and feeling? In thine, imagination shines, revealing The soul's convictions, swift on dawn-ward wings From beastly life and such Hell-smelling things, As wealth and pomp from church and abbey stealing,-- And hearts in hopes high Belfries, Heavenward pealing, As Time, his Sun and Starry censor, swings.

Would thou wert England's Nature, Bard Supreme, To fashion kings and lordlings fit to rule; They would be flesh and blood, not fiend and ghoul; And would thou wert her Sun, that every beam Might not, for tally, show a youth's blood-pool, Choking blithe Spring, as, now, to earth's extreme.

ENGLAND'S RIGHTEOUSNESS