I am the soul that calls you to rejoice.
And every wayside flower is my disguise.
"Look closely. Are the wings too wide for pity?
Look closely. Do these tender hues betray?
How often have I sought my Holy City?
How often have ye turned your hearts away?
"Is there not healing in the beauty I bring you?
Am I not whispering in green leaves and rain, Singing in all that woods and seas can sing you?
Look, once, on Love, and earth is heaven again.
"O, did your Spring but once a century waken, The heaven of heavens for this would be forsaken."
VII.
There"s but one gift that all our dead desire, One gift that men can give, and that"s a dream, Unless we, too, can burn with that same fire Of sacrifice; die to the things that seem;
Die to the little hatreds; die to greed; Die to the old ign.o.ble selves we knew; Die to the base contempts of sect and creed, And rise again, like these, with souls as true.
Nay (since these died before their task was finished) Attempt new heights, bring even their dreams to birth:-- Build us that better world, Oh, not diminished By one true splendor that they planned on earth.
And that"s not done by sword, or tongue, or pen, There"s but one way. G.o.d make us better men.
AMERICAN POEMS 1912-1917
REPUBLIC AND MOTHERLAND (_1912_)
(Written after entering New York Harbor at Daybreak)
Up the vast harbor with the morning sun The ship swept in from sea; Gigantic towers arose, the night was done, And--there stood Liberty.
Silent, the great torch lifted in one hand, The dawn in her proud eyes, Silent, for all the shouts that vex her land, Silent, hailing the skies;
Hailing that mightier Kingdom of the Blest Our seamen sought of old, The dream that lured the nations through the West, The city of sunset gold.
Saxon and Norman in one wedded soul Shook out one flag like fire; But westward, westward, moved the gleaming goal, Westward, the vast desire.
Westward and ever westward ran the call, They followed the pilgrim sun, Seeking that land which should enfold them all, And weld all hearts in one.
Here on this mightier continent apart, Here on these rolling plains, Swells the first throb of that immortal heart, The pulse of those huge veins.
Still, at these towers, our Old-World cities jest, And neither hear nor see The brood of G.o.ds at that gigantic breast, The conquering race to be.
Chosen from many--for no sluggard soul Confronts that night of stars-- The trumpets of the last Republic roll Far off, an end to wars;
An end, an end to that wild blood-red age, That made and keeps us blind; A mightier realm shall be her heritage, The kingdom of mankind.
Chosen from many nations, and made one; But first, O Mother, from thee, When, following, following on that Pilgrim sun, Thy Mayflower crossed the sea.
THE UNION (_1917_)
You that have gathered together the sons of all races, And welded them into one, Lifting the torch of your Freedom on hungering faces That sailed to the setting sun;
You that have made of mankind in your own proud regions The music of man to be, How should the old earth sing of you, now, as your legions Rise to set all men free?
How should the singer that knew the proud vision and loved it, In the days when not all men knew, Gaze through his tears, on the light, now the world has approved it; Or dream, when the dream comes true?
How should he sing when the Spirit of Freedom in thunder Speaks, and the wine-press is red; And the sea-winds are loud with the chains that are broken asunder And nations that rise from the dead?
Flag of the sky, proud flag of that wide communion, Too mighty for thought to scan; Flag of the many in one, and that last world-union That kingdom of G.o.d in man;
Ours was a dream, in the night, of that last federation, But yours is the glory unfurled-- The marshalled nations and stars that shall make one nation One singing star of the world.
GHOSTS OF THE NEW WORLD
"_There are no ghosts in America._"
There are no ghosts, you say, To haunt her blaze of light; No shadows in her day, No phantoms in her night.
Columbus" tattered sail Has pa.s.sed beyond our hail.
What? On that magic coast, Where Raleigh fought with fate, Or where that Devon ghost Unbarred the Golden Gate, No dark, strange, ear-ringed men Beat in from sea again?
No ghosts in Salem town With silver buckled shoon?
No lovely witch to drown Or burn beneath the moon?
Not even a whiff of tea, On Boston"s glimmering quay.
O, ghostly Spanish walls, Where brown Franciscans glide, Is there no voice that calls Across the Great Divide, To pilgrims on their way Along the Santa Fe?
Then let your Pullman cars Go roaring to the West, Till, watched by lonelier stars, The cactus lifts its crest.