Classic Poem

1

March, march, mothers and grand-mammas!
Come from each home that stands in our border!
March, march, fathers and grand-papas!
Now young America waits in good order!
Here is a flower show,
Grown under winter snow,
Ready for spring with her sunshine and showers;
Here every blossom grows
Shamrock, thistle and rose,
And fresh from our hillsides the Pilgrim's May flowers.

2

Here is the New World that yet shall be founded;
Here are our Websters, our Sumners and Hales,
And here, with ambition by boat-racing bounded,
Perhaps there may be a new Splitter of rails.
Here are our future men,
Here are John Browns again;
Here are young Phillipses eyeing our blunders,
Yet may the river see
Hunt, Hosmer, Flint and Lee
Stand to make Concord hills echo their thunders.

3

Here are the women who make no complaining,
Dumb-bells and clubs chasing vapors away,
Queens of good health and good humor all reigning,
Fairer and freer than we of to-day;
Fullers with gifted eyes,
Friendly Eliza Frys,
Nightingales born to give war a new glory;
Britomarts brave to ride
Thro' the world far and wide,
Righting all wrongs, as in Spenser's sweet story.

4

Come now from Barrett's mill, Bateman's blue water,
Nine Acre Corner, the Centre and all.
Come from the Factory, the North and East Quarter,
For here is a Union that never need fall,
Lads in your blithest moods,
Maids in your pretty snoods,
Come from all homes that stand in our border;
Concord shall many a day
Tell of the fair array
When young America met in good order.

I strove, like Israel, with my youth,
And said, Till thou bestow
Upon my life Love's joy and truth,
I will not let thee go.

And sudden on my night there woke
The trouble of the dawn;
Out of the east the red light broke,
To broaden on and on.

And now let death be far or nigh,
Let fortune gloom or shine,
I cannot all untimely die,
For love, for love is mine.

My days are tuned to finer chords,
And lit by higher suns;,
Through all my thoughts and all my words
A purer purpose runs.

The blank page of my heart grows rife
With wealth of tender lore;
Her image, stamped upon my life,
Gives value evermore.

She is so noble, firm, and true,
I drink truth from her eyes,
As violets gain the heaven's own blue
In gazing at the skies.

No matter if my hands attain
The golden crown or cross
Only to love is such a gain
That losing is not loss.

And thus whatever fate betide
Of rapture or of pain,
If storm or sun the future hide,
My love is not in vain.

So only thanks are on my lips;
And through my love I see
My earliest dreams, like freighted ships,
Come sailing home to me.