Classic Poem

" Continue, O continue, " cry her dreams,
And the very fibres of her stems;
Floating forest voices bode
And break like a sea over the continents,
" Continue, O continue, " cry her faiths,
Her wisdoms, savour of continuity,
Sweeping from node to node
Her mounting sap, her sapience,
Like her green glens
Of brooks that pour the sky from fall to fall
Her grave religions to the labourer call,
" Thou art required, infinitesimal!
Now comes the day of pang
Of which thy fathers sang,
When at the edge of death
Thou must pass on
That high contagion
Her life, that gave thee breath. "
" Continue, O continue, " cries her noble Reason,
" Thy life but serves, creating in due orders
The floating judgments of the invisible
Hearths, throng'd within my borders;
And for the free play of the soul's
Most intimate loneliness and fire!
Upon their counter'd voices, joined, depend
All judgment, and all justice, in the end. "

'Tis thus the soul of France
Hath stemm'd the great advance
Of yonder cannoniers.