Freedom, Truth And Beauty Part 2

The bloom, for which mere wealth lacks length of arm, And fainting Time takes for reviving scent, Fame, with bright eyes from heart and soul content, Forms wreaths for Valor's Daughters--crowns that charm Not with death-smells from Human welfare rent But breath of Country's rescue from dire harm.

II

Those crowns, not cold from death sweat on the brow, At sight of apparitions with fixed stare, But warm with summer, conjuring beauties rare-- Wilt not. They are dewed daily by your vow, Daughters of sires who, to no thrall, would bow!

Which, at the alter with raised hands, ye swear, Cheering the blessed spirits, gathered there, That, like their Mothers, are their daughters now.

True women--and therefore, craft foilers clever-- With sons for your hearts utterance, ye sue Not, but like Barry to the British crew, Ye cry out: "What! we strike our colors? Never!

Fie, shot! fie, Gold! these colors, since they drew Their first star-breath, are G.o.d's, and G.o.d's forever."

Ye know the Leopard changes not his spots.

The Prince of Peace, who spake eternal truth, Confirmed this fact of Nature. He, with ruth Omniscient, saw afar, the scarlet clots Of English nature, in profidious plots For conquest, mangling not alone brave youth With teeth set, but old age without a tooth, And Mothers, clutching up their bleeding tots.

Oh, yea, this beast makes his own desert, still; And Ireland, India and Egypt show His spots so spread, he is one ghastly glow; Aye, as your sires saw him from Bunker Hill.

Oh, vain, gold rubs the skin and press shouts, "Lo!

It has not now one spot of threatening ill."

IV

O Daughters of the brave, well ye abjure The fiend and all his works. Ye know his smiles Are fire-fly flare at gloaming, lighting miles Of snake-boughed forests down to swamps, impure From mind and soul decay; hence are heart-sure That creed and racial hatreds are his wiles, For G.o.d is Love, and Love draws, reconsiles, And is the strength that makes our land endure.

O Mothers, as you lift your babes and gaze Into their eyes, your love runs through their vains In crimson flushes--oh, your love that pains At any of G.o.d's creatures hurt! that stays; The heavens may pa.s.s away, but that remains, Being of Christ, who walks earth Mother-ways.

V

Oh, like your sires, you, too, know Freedom's worth To Human Spirit. For its liberation, A G.o.d unrealmed himself by tribulation, And was an out-cast on a scornful earth.

Christ is no myth and, since with Human birth He forms new Heavens for blissful habitation-- There unto is the Freedom of the Nation; All other trend is down to dark and dearth.

When from the darkness rainbowed birth comes pouring, Your virtue heeds the voice, Eternity-- Re-echos: "Let them come." 'Tis Nature's plea For broadening progress; Nay, 'tis G.o.d imploring The Human to take strength for Liberty, Truth, Honor, to catch up to the stars, a-soaring.

VI

O Daughters of brave sires, what is true glory?

No marsh-ward falling star, however bright.

'Tis inspirational; its upward flight Lifts generations--such your Father's story, And also yours, for is not that, too, gory?

You pour out your hearts blood in sons to fight For honor, and cease not till every right Has been set down in Triumph's inventory.

Oh, into daughters, too, old n.o.ble Mothers!

You pour out your hearts blood that, in your place, They may fill up the ranks and, as in case Of Molly Pitcher, man guns for their brothers, And hearten firm, the trembling human race To know, though brave men fall, there still comes others.

VII

If Christ's foreshadowing in Juda's haze Was of his grief, 'tis of His triumph, here, For, is not His celestrial glory clear In Freedom for all men? First, gaseous rays In Maryland, then rounded firm full blaze In the Republic, it draws every sphere Of Human welfare, whether far or near, From depths occult to nights with dawns and days.

The Freedom of the Generation's longing Reflects Lord Christ in glory, hour by hour, With more distinctness, as you, with His power, Free heart and brain from every brother-wronging, And give your offspring, these, as flesh and dower, To live and lead the millions, hither thronging.

VIII

Oh, ever Mothers--shaping robust youth No less than infant, and as perfectly!

There's life blood to their veins from when on knee To when thy battle, from your broadening ruth For Human kind and fervent love of truth.

If, like their fathers, they have come to be The wonder of the world, for liberty, Your virtue, 'tis, that in their valor greweth.

Oh, as the Roman Mother, when she showed For jewels, her two sons, saw each of them In Time's Tiara, glittering there a gem; So, see your offspring shine. The light, bestowed Your Fathers, in your sons is diamond flame, Encircling Freedom's ocean-walled abode.

IX

Is it Apocalyptic Vision, when White-winged Columbus swoops from Spain's palmed sh.o.r.e And, from dark depths, lifts at San Salvador, A continent, adrip with streams which, then, Become the fountain of the Psalmist's ken, Where Right the heart, from hoof to horn foam-h.o.a.r From craggy speed, slakes thirst, and, evermore, Comes Hope's whole clattering herd?--you chant, "Amen."

Aye, for your sires made earth this new creation Where, from San Salvadore and Plymouth Reef To Westward Mission Trails, ascends belief In G.o.d and, therefore, in the Soul's Salvation Through Freedom, in white, spiral spray which grief Sees, spite earth-mists, or solar obscuration.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

SONNETS

FREEDOM, TRUTH AND BEAUTY

THE PROEM

Soar thou aloft, though thou ascend alone, O Human Spirit! Thou canst not be lost.

What though yon stars, the azure's nightly frost Melt dark, or mount round thee an arctic zone!

Thou hast sun-warmth and star-source of thine own.

If thou mount not, how bitter is the cost!

What anguish, when whirled down, or tempest tossed, To know how high toward G.o.d thou mightst have flown!

Vault G.o.dward, Poet. What though few may climb The mountain and the star on trail of thee?

Thy wing-flash beams toward Man, and, if it be True inspiration--whether thought sublime, Or fervor for the Truth, or Liberty-- Thy light will reach the earth in goodly time.

THE ATLANTIC