freedom

The blast from Freedom's Northern hills, upon its Southern way,
Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay:
No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle's peal,
Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemen's steel,

No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go;
Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the snow;
And to the land-breeze of our ports, upon their errands far,
A thousand sails of commerce swell, but none are spread for war.

We hear thy threats, Virginia! thy stormy words and high

Come Jack, our place is with the ruck
On the open road today,
Not with the tepid "footpath sneak"
Or with the wise who stop away.

A straggling, tame procession, perhaps,
A butt for burgess scorn;
Its flags are ragged sentiments,
And its music's still unborn.

Though none respectable are here,
And trim officials ban,
Our duty, Jack, is not with them,
But here with Hope and Man.

Nor have we cause for shame, who see,
In the glory-lighted street,
The Old Brigade of Liberty

You observe the carven hand
With the index finger pointing heavenward.
That is the direction, no doubt.
But how shall one follow it?
It is well to abstain from murder and lust,
To forgive, do good to others, worship God
Without graven images.
But these are external means after all
By which you chiefly do good to yourself.
The inner kernel is freedom,
It is light, purity --
I can no more,
Find the goal or lose it, according to your vision.

They told to Marie Antoinette:
"The beggers at your gate
Have eyes too sad for tears to wet,
And for your pity wait."
But Marie only laughed and said:
"My heart they will not ache:
If people starve for want of bread
Let them eat cake."

The Court re-echoed her bon mot;
It rang around the land,
Till masses wakened from their woe
With scyth and pick in hand.
It took a careless, callous phrase
To rouse the folk forlorn:

You dare to say with perjured lips,
"We fight to make the ocean free"?
You, whose black trail of butchered ships
Bestrews the bed of every sea
Where German submarines have wrought
Their horrors! Have you never thought, --
What you call freedom, men call piracy!

Unnumbered ghosts that haunt the wave
Where you have murdered, cry you down;
And seamen whom you would not save,
Weave now in weed-grown depths a crown
Of shame for your imperious head, --
A dark memorial of the dead, --

Bring the good old bugle, boys! we'll sing another song --
Sing it with a spirit that will start the world along --
Sing it as we used to sing it fifty thousand strong,
While we were marching through Georgia.

"Hurrah! Hurrah! we bring the Jubile!
Hurrah! Hurrah! the flag that makes you free!"
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea,
While we were marching through Georgia.

How the darkeys shouted when they heard the joyful sound!
How the turkeys gobbled which our commissary found!

Maceo dead! a thrill of sorrow
Through our hearts in sadness ran
When we felt in one sad hour
That the world had lost a man.

He had clasped unto his bosom
The sad fortunes of his land --
Held the cause for which he perished
With a firm, unfaltering hand.

On his lips the name of freedom
Fainted with his latest breath.
Cuba Libre was his watchword
Passing through the gates of death.

With the light of God around us,
Why this agony and strife?

I.
HOW beautiful doth the morning rise
O’er the hills, as from her bower a bride
Comes brightened—blushing with the shame-faced pride
Of love that now consummated supplies
All her full heart can wish, and to the eyes
Dear are the flowers then, in their green haunts spied,
Glist ning with dew: pleasant at noon the side
Of shadowy mountains ridging to the skies:
At eve ’tis sweet to hear the breeze advance
Through the responding forest dense and tall;

On a rocky peak once sat I early,
Gazing on the mist with eyes unmoving;
Stretch'd out like a pall of greyish texture,
All things round, and all above it cover'd.

Suddenly a boy appear'd beside me,
Saying "Friend, what meanest thou by gazing
On the vacant pall with such composure?
Hast thou lost for evermore all pleasure
Both in painting cunningly, and forming?"
On the child I gazed, and thought in secret:
"Would the boy pretend to be a master?"

"Wouldst thou be for ever dull and idle,"

Of our own will we are not free,
When freedom lies within our power.
We wait for some decisive hour,
To rise and take our liberty.

Still we delay, content to be
Imprisoned in our own high tower.
What is it but a strong-built bower?
Ours are the warders, ours the key.

But we through indolence grow weak.
Our warders, fed with power so long,
Become at last our lords indeed.
We vainly threaten, vainly seek
To move their ruth. The bars are strong.
We dash against them till we bleed.