1898


The strength of twice three thousand horse
That seeks the single goal;
The line that holds the rending course,
The hate that swings the whole;
The stripped hulls, slinking through the gloom,
At gaze and gone again --
The Brides of Death that wait the groom --
The Choosers of the Slain!

Offshore where sea and skyline blend
In rain, the daylight dies;
The sullen, shouldering sweels attend
Night and our sacrifice.
Adown the stricken capes no flare --

I know a village in a far-off land
Where from a sunny, mountain-girdled plain
With tinted walls a space on either hand
And fed by many an olive-darkened lane
The high-road mounts, and thence a silver band
Through vineyard slopes above and rolling grain,
Winds off to that dim corner of the skies
Where behind sunset hills a stately city lies.

Here, among trees whose overhanging shade
Strews petals on the little droves below,
Pattering townward in the morning weighed
With greens from many an upland garden-row,

Who dwelt in yonder lonely Cot,
Why is it thus forsaken?
It seems, by all the world forgot,
Above its path the high grass grows,
And through its thatch the northwind blows
--Its thatch, by tempests shaken.

And yet, it tops a verdant hill
By Summer gales surrounded:
Beneath its door a shallow rill
Runs brawling to the vale below,
And near it sweetest flowrets grow
By banks of willow bounded.

Then why is ev'ry casement dark?
Why looks the Cot so chearless?
Ah ! why does ruin seem to mark

He did not lie – the ghost, so sad and thoughtful,
That from a star took his name by a chance,
When he had said, “Don’t fear the Lord”, to us,
“Just try the fruit and be like Him immortal”.

All routs for youths were opened in glow,
And all forbidden works – for older ones,
And amber fruits -- for gaily girls, at once,
And the rhinoceros forever white as snow.

But why we lean, bereft of any strength,
And feel that someone has forgot all us at length,
And grasp the dread of the old lure, if only

I am a feather on the bright sky
I am the blue horse that runs in the plain
I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water
I am the shadow that follows a child
I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows
I am an eagle playing with the wind
I am a cluster of bright beads
I am the farthest star
I am the cold of the dawn
I am the roaring of the rain
I am the glitter on the crust of the snow
I am the long track of the moon in a lake
I am a flame of four colors
I am a deer standing away in the dusk

When Deborah the prophetess ruled in God’s land,
And Sisera died under Jael’s fierce hand,
His mother looked forth at the close of the day,
When the roar of the war died in silence away:
And she cried, “Still his charriot tarries afar!
Are its wheels clogged about with the slaughter of war?”
And her damsels made answer, “Awhile yet they stay
To trample the fallen, dividing the prey.”
Day shut, and the stars that had doomed him to death
Rushed out, while to listen she pent in her breath;
But the sound of his chariot over the plain

Fit winding-sheet for thee
Was the upheaving eternal sea,
Fit dirge the tempest’s slave-alarming roll
For yokeless as the waves alway
Thy thoughts went sounding forth, as they
Were marshalling to the trumpet of the universal soul.
Yet tell me, spirit bright,
Did nature sorrow not for thee?
That day, veiled not the sun his light
When rolling over Italy?
Paled not the stricken moon, that night,
When gazing down upon the doomful sea?

Yet tell me, for from under them

On Tiber's banks, Tiber, whose waters glide
In slow meanders down to Gaigra's side;
And circling all the horrid mountain round,
Rushes impetuous to the deep profound;
Rolls o'er the ragged rocks with hideous yell;
Collects its waves beneath the earth's vast shell;
There for a while in loud confusion hurl'd,
It crumbles mountains down and shakes the world.
Till borne upon the pinions of the air,
Through the rent earth the bursting waves appear;
Fiercely propell'd the whiten'd billows rise,

We're taking Marie Toro to her home in Père-La-Chaise;
We're taking Marie Toro to her last resting-place.
Behold! her hearse is hung with wreaths till everything is hid
Except the blossoms heaping high upon her coffin lid.
A week ago she roamed the street, a draggle and a slut,
A by-word of the Boulevard and everybody's butt;
A week ago she haunted us, we heard her whining cry,
We brushed aside the broken blooms she pestered us to buy;
A week ago she had not where to rest her weary head . . .
But now, oh, follow, follow on, for Marie Toro's dead.

Oh! we love that dear old flag,
That our forefathers gave
Over one hundred years ago, boys,
They once stood under that dear flag,
But now they are in their graves,
Sleeping their everlasting sleep, boys.
II
CHORUS:

The Union forever,
Hurrah, boys, hurrah;
Down with the traitors,
Up with the stars;
For we love that dear old flag
That our fathers fought to save
When they were fighting for our freedom.
III
We will rally around its standard
Every Fourth day of July,
For we dearly love our nation;