Pike County Ballads and Other Poems Part 3

Once thy magnanimous sons trod, victors, the portals of Asia, Once the Pacific waves rushed, joyful thy banners to see; For it was Trajan that carried the battle-flushed eagles to Dacia, Cortes that planted thy flag fast by the uttermost sea.

III.

Hast thou forgotten those days illumined with glory and honour, When the far isles of the sea thrilled to the tread of Castile?

When every land under Heaven was flecked by the shade of thy banner,-- When every beam of the sun flashed on thy conquering steel?

IV.

Then through red fields of slaughter, through death and defeat and disaster, Still flared thy banner aloft, tattered, but free from a stain,-- Now to the upstart Savoyard thou bendest to beg for a master!

How the red flush of her shame mars the proud beauty of Spain!

V.

Has the red blood run cold that boiled by the Xenil and Darro?

Are the high deeds of the sires sung to the children no more?

On the dun hills of the North hast thou heard of no plough-boy Pizarro?

Roams no young swine-herd Cortes hid by the Tagus' wild sh.o.r.e?

VI.

Once again does Hispania bend low to the yoke of the stranger!

Once again will she rise, flinging her gyves in the sea!

Princeling of Piedmont! unwitting thou weddest with doubt and with danger, King over men who have learned all that it costs to be free.

THE PRAYER OF THE ROMANS.

Not done, but near its ending, Is the work that our eyes desired; Not yet fulfilled, but near the goal, Is the hope that our worn hearts fired.

And on the Alban Mountains, Where the blushes of dawn increase, We see the flash of the beautiful feet Of Freedom and of Peace!

How long were our fond dreams baffled!-- Novara's sad mischance, The Kaiser's sword and fetter-lock, And the traitor stab of France; Till at last came glorious Venice, In storm and tempest home; And now G.o.d maddens the greedy kings, And gives to her people Rome.

Lame Lion of Caprera!

Red-shirts of the lost campaigns!

Not idly shed was the costly blood You poured from generous veins.

For the shame of Aspromonte, And the stain of Mentana's sod, But forged the curse of kings that sprang From your breaking hearts to G.o.d!

We lift our souls to Thee, O Lord Of Liberty and of Light!

Let not earth's kings pollute the work That was done in their despite; Let not Thy light be darkened In the shade of a sordid crown, Nor pampered swine devour the fruit Thou shook'st with an earthquake down!

Let the People come to their birthright, And crosier and crown pa.s.s away Like phantasms that flit o'er the marshes At the glance of the clean, white day.

And then from the lava of AEtna To the ice of the Alps let there be One freedom, one faith without fetters, One republic in Italy free!

THE CURSE OF HUNGARY.

King Saloman looked from his donjon bars, Where the Danube clamours through sedge and sand, And he cursed with a curse his revolting land,-- With a king's deep curse of treason and wars.

He said: "May this false land know no truth!

May the good hearts die and the bad ones flourish, And a greed of glory but live to nourish Envy and hate in its restless youth.

"In the barren soil may the ploughshare rust, While the sword grows bright with its fatal labour, And blackens between each man and neighbour The perilous cloud of a vague distrust!

"Be the n.o.ble idle, the peasant in thrall, And each to the other as unknown things, That with links of hatred and pride the kings May forge firm fetters through each for all!

"May a king wrong them as they wronged their king May he wring their hearts as they wrung mine, Till they pour their blood for his revels like wine, And to women and monks their birthright fling!"

The mad king died; but the rushing river Still brawls by the spot where his donjon stands, And its swift waves sigh to the conscious sands That the curse of King Saloman works for ever.

For flowing by Pressbourg they heard the cheers Ring out from the leal and cheated hearts That were caught and chained by Theresa's arts,-- A man's cool head and a girl's hot tears!

And a star, scarce risen, they saw decline, Where Orsova's hills looked coldly down, As Kossuth buried the Iron Crown And fled in the dark to the Turkish line.

And latest they saw in the summer glare The Magyar n.o.bles in pomp arrayed, To shout as they saw, with his unfleshed blade, A Hapsburg beating the harmless air.

But ever the same sad play they saw, The same weak worship of sword and crown, The n.o.ble crushing the humble down, And moulding Wrong to a monstrous Law.

The donjon stands by the turbid river, But Time is crumbling its battered towers; And the slow light withers a despot's powers, And a mad king's curse is not for ever!

THE MONKS OF BASLE.

I tore this weed from the rank, dark soil Where it grew in the monkish time, I trimmed it close and set it again In a border of modern rhyme.

I.

Long years ago, when the Devil was loose And faith was sorely tried, Three monks of Basle went out to walk In the quiet eventide.

A breeze as pure as the breath of Heaven Blew fresh through the cloister-shades, A sky as glad as the smile of Heaven Blushed rose o'er the minster-glades.

But scorning the lures of summer and sense, The monks pa.s.sed on in their walk; Their eyes were abased, their senses slept, Their souls were in their talk.

In the tough grim talk of the monkish days They hammered and slashed about,-- Dry husks of logic,--old sc.r.a.ps of creed,-- And the cold gray dreams of doubt,--

And whether Just or Justified Was the Church's mystic Head,-- And whether the Bread was changed to G.o.d, Or G.o.d became the Bread.

But of human hearts outside their walls They never paused to dream, And they never thought of the love of G.o.d That smiled in the twilight gleam.

II.

As these three monks went bickering on By the foot of a spreading tree, Out from its heart of verdurous gloom A song burst wild and free,--

A wordless carol of life and love, Of nature free and wild; And the three monks paused in the evening shade, Looked up at each other and smiled.

And tender and gay the bird sang on, And cooed and whistled and trilled, And the wasteful wealth of life and love From his happy heart was spilled.