Chapter 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?