Chapter XXI: Jaafer the Vizier

Lutes, odorous torches, slaves and dancing girls
In gardens by a moonlit waterside,
And one whose wise lips scatter words like pearls--
Behold the true Haroun whom naught may hide!

THE PURITANS’ CHRISTMAS

Their only thought religion,
What Christmas joys had they,
The stern, staunch Pilgrim Fathers who
Knew never a holiday?--

A log-church in the clearing
’Mid solitudes of snow,
The wild-beast and the wilderness,
And lurking Indian foe.

No time had they for pleasure,
Whom God had put to school;
A sermon was their Christmas cheer,
A psalm their only Yule.

They deemed it joy sufficient,--
Nor would Christ take it ill,--
That service to himself and God
Employed their spirits still.

And so through faith and prayer
Their powers were renewed,
And hearts made strong to hew a world,
And tame a solitude.

A type of revolution,
Wrought from an iron plan,
In the largest mold of liberty
God cast the Puritan.

A better land they founded,
That Freedom had for bride,
The shackles of old despotism
Struck from her limbs and side.

With faith within to guide them,
And courage to perform,
A nation, from a wilderness,
They hewed with their strong arm.

For liberty to worship,
And right to do and dare,
They faced the savage and the storm
With voices raised in prayer.

For God it was who summoned,
And God it was who led,
And God would not forsake the love
That must be clothed and fed.

Great need had they of courage!
Great need of faith had they!
And, lacking these,--how otherwise
For us had been this day!

THE NEW YEAR

Lift up thy torch, O Year, and let us see
What Destiny
Hath made thee heir to, at nativity!--

Doubt, some call Faith; and ancient Wrong and Might,
Whom some name Right;
And Darkness, that the purblind world calls Light.

Despair, with Hope’s brave form; and Hate, who goes
In Friendship’s clothes;
And Joy, the smiling mask of many woes.

Neglect, whom Merit serves; Lust, to whom, see,
Love bends the knee;
And Selfishness, who preacheth charity.

Vice, in whose dungeon Virtue lies in chains;
And Cares and Pains,
That on the throne of Pleasure hold their reigns.

Corruption, known as Honesty; and Fame
That’s but a name;
And Innocence, whose other name is Shame.

And Folly men call Wisdom here, forsooth;
And, like a youth,
Fair Falsehood, whom the many take for Truth.

Abundance, who hath Famine’s house in lease;
And, high ’mid these,
War, blood-black, on the spotless shrine of Peace.

Lift up thy torch, O Year! make clear our sight!
Deep lies the night
Around us, and God grants us little light!

THE POET OF THE SIERRAS

How shall I greet him--him who seems
To me the greatest of our singers?
As one who hears Sierra streams,
And, gazing under arching fingers,
Feels all the eagle feels that screams,
The savage dreams, what time he lingers?

Son of the West, out of the West
We heard thee sing,--who still allurest,--
That land where God sits manifest;
That land where man stands freest, surest;
That land, our wildest and our best,
The grandest and the purest.

Wild hast thou sung,--as some strange bird,--
Of gold and men and peaks that glistened,
Of seas and stars, and we have heard--
And one, whose soul cried out and listened,
He sends his young, unworthy word
To thee the Master’s hand hath christened

AMERICA

Behold her stand, with power thunder-lipped,
And eagle-thoughts that soar above the storm
Convulsing ledges of the mountain Wrong!
Beside her Liberty, whose sword is tipped
With lightning, towering a majestic form,
Her voice like battle in a freedom song.

America, what hates may soil thy hands?
What kingdoms face with insult thy bold brow?
Oppressions brave the anger in thine eyes?--
Behind thee dies the darkness from the lands:
Before thee mounts the glory of the Now:
Around thee sit the sessions of the skies.

Thine is the land where Progress leans to heed
The lessons taught of Heaven and of God,
The golden texts of morning and of night:
The science of thy soul hath taught thee speed!
No precedent of Nations makes thee nod!
Brow-bound with bolts, thy feet are shod with light.

America, beneath thy iron heel
What Old World tyrannies, that crushed the poor,
Writhe out their lives, abolished in their ire!
Around thine arms, wrapped strong in fourfold steel,
What Old World injuries have failed to moor
Barques thou hast beaconed like a pillared fire!

Thou speakest, and Oppression’s mists divide;
And gyves of Superstition and of Lust
Fall shattered from the World; and Truth and Love
Assume their places, beautiful in pride:
And stars spring up around them from the dust,
The dust of hopes long fallen from above.

Onward thou movest: where thy steps are bent
The Earth is civilized: the desert plain
Blossoms--is citied with vast industry.--
Behold! the pagan, Violence, is spent!
His idol, Ignorance, is rent in twain
Before thy splendor that makes all men free.

“THE FATHERS OF OUR FATHERS”

_Written February 24, 1898, on reading the latest news concerning the battleship Maine, blown up in Havana Harbor, February fifteenth._

I

The fathers of our fathers, they were men!--
What are we who now stand idle while we see our seamen slain?
Who behold our flag dishonored, and still pause!
Are we blind to her duplicity, the treachery of Spain?
To the rights, she scorns, of nations and their laws?
Let us rise, a mighty people, let us wipe away the stain!
Shall we wait till she defile us for a cause?--
The fathers of our fathers, they were men!

II

The fathers of our fathers, they were men!--
Had they nursed delay as we do? had they sat thus deaf and dumb,
With these cowards compromising year by year?
Never hearing what they should hear, never saying what should come,
While the courteous mask of Spain still hid a sneer!
No! such news had ’roused their natures like a rolling battle-drum--
God of Earth! and God of Battles! do we fear?--
The fathers of our fathers, they were men!

III

The fathers of our fathers, they were men!--
What are we who are so cautious, never venturing too far!
Shall we, at the cost of honor, still keep peace?
While we see the thousands starving and the struggling Cuban star,
And the outraged form of Freedom on her knees!
Let our long, steel ocean-bloodhounds, adamantine dogs of war,
Sweep the yellow Spanish panther from the seas!--
The fathers of our fathers, they were men!

MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN

I

Behold! we have gathered together our battleships near and afar;
Their decks, they are cleared for action; their guns, they are
shotted for war:
From the East to the West there is hurry; in the North and the
South a peal
Of hammers in fort and shipyard, and the clamor and clang of steel;
And the roar and the rush of engines, and clanking of derrick and crane--
Thou art weighed in the Scales and found wanting! the balance
of God, O Spain!

II

Behold! I have stood on the mountains, and this was writ in the sky:--
“She is weighed in the Scales and found wanting! the balance
God holds on high!”
The balance he once weighed Babylon, the Mother of Harlots, in:
One scale holds thy pride and thy power and empire, begotten of sin;
Heavy with woe and torture, the crimes of a thousand years,
Mortared and welded together with fire and blood and tears:
In the other, for justice and mercy, a blade with never a stain,
Is laid the Sword of Liberty, and the balance dips, O Spain!

III

Summon thy vessels together! great is thy need for these!--
Cristobal Colon, Vizcaya, Oquendo, and Maria Terese--
Let them be strong and many, for a vision I had by night,
That the ancient wrongs thou hast done the world came
howling to the fight:
From the New-World’s shores they gathered, Inca and Aztec slain,
To the Cuban shot but yesterday, and our own dead seamen, Spain!

IV

Summon thy ships together, gather a mighty fleet!
For a strong, young Nation is arming, that never hath known defeat.
Summon thy ships together, there by thy blood-stained sands!
For a shadowy army gathers with manacled feet and hands;
A shadowy host of sorrows and shames, too black to tell,
That reach, with their horrible wounds, for thee to drag
thee down to Hell:
A myriad phantoms and spectres, thou warrest against in vain--
Thou art weighed in the Scales and found wanting! the
balance of God, O Spain!

May, 1898.

UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES

I

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!

II

We in whose bodies the blood of these 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 might of our vengeance thrice strong--
Rally together! come marching along
Under the Stars and Stripes!

III

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 from our guns let defiance be hurled!
God on our side, we will battle the world,
Under the Stars and Stripes!

May, 1898.

OUR CAUSE

I

Lord God, who mad’st Spain’s vessels melt
Before the flame our squadrons dealt,
And Santiago’s mountain belt
Rock near and far
With thunder of our ships of steel,
Keep us still humble! help us kneel
In prayer with hearts as great to heal,
As strong in war!

II

When turret booms to turret; when
The steam goes up of battle, then
Lord God, we pray Thee, keep our men
Till all is o’er:
Should pride of conquest then mislead
Our House and Senate, Lord, we plead
Keep Thou our cause as clean of greed
As ’twas before.

III

And when the batteries there of Spain,
From shore and headland, hurricane
Their roaring sleet and crashing rain
Of shell and shot;
When drums beat up and bugles blow,
And rank on rank we face the foe,
In life and death, in joy and woe,
Forget us not.

IV

Not for ourselves we pray to Thee;
But for the cause of liberty,
Lord God!--Let old Oppression see
How o’er her coasts
Our Eagle’s fierce, majestic form
Soars through the lightning and the storm
Beneath thy all protecting arm,
Lord God of Hosts!

July 4th, 1898.