DEDICATION

What lineage so noble as from Sires,

Laureled by Freedom? For, who, but the brave

Have glory to transmit? The Hero's grave

Blooms ever. It is there the spring retires

To dream to flowers, her heart and soul desires,

When winter's whitening wind, like wash of wave,

Sweeps mauseleums of the skulk and knave

From mounts of glare off to Oblivion's mires.

The bloom, for which mere wealth lacks length of arm,

And fainting Time takes for reviving scent,

Fame, with bright eyes from heart and soul content,

Forms wreaths for Valor's Daughters — crowns that charm

Not with death-smells from Human welfare rent

But breath of Country's rescue from dire harm.

Those crowns, not cold from death sweat on the brow,

At sight of apparitions with fixed stare,

But warm with summer, conjuring beauties rare —

Wilt not. They are dewed daily by your vow,

Daughters of sires who, to no thrall, would bow!

Which, at the alter with raised hands, ye swear,

Cheering the blessed spirits, gathered there,

That, like their Mothers, are their daughters now.

True women — and therefore, craft foilers clever —

With sons for your hearts utterance, ye sue

Not, but like Barry to the British crew,

Ye cry out: “What! we strike our colors? Never!

Fie, shot! fie, Gold! these colors, since they drew

Their first star-breath, are God's, and God's forever.”

Ye know the Leopard changes not his spots.

The Prince of Peace, who spake eternal truth,

Confirmed this fact of Nature. He, with ruth

Omniscient, saw afar, the scarlet clots

Of English nature, in profidious plots

For conquest, mangling not alone brave youth

With teeth set, but old age without a tooth,

And Mothers, clutching up their bleeding tots.

Oh, yea, this beast makes his own desert, still;

And Ireland, India and Egypt show

His spots so spread, he is one ghastly glow;

Aye, as your sires saw him from Bunker Hill.

Oh, vain, gold rubs the skin and press shouts, “Lo!

It has not now one spot of threatening ill.”

O Daughters of the brave, well ye abjure

The fiend and all his works. Ye know his smiles

Are fire-fly flare at gloaming, lighting miles

Of snake-boughed forests down to swamps, impure

From mind and soul decay; hence are heart-sure

That creed and racial hatreds are his wiles,

For God is Love, and Love draws, reconsiles,

And is the strength that makes our land endure.

O Mothers, as you lift your babes and gaze

Into their eyes, your love runs through their vains

In crimson flushes — oh, your love that pains

At any of God's creatures hurt! that stays;

The heavens may pass away, but that remains,

Being of Christ, who walks earth Mother-ways.

Oh, like your sires, you, too, know Freedom's worth

To Human Spirit. For its liberation,

A God unrealmed himself by tribulation,

And was an out-cast on a scornful earth.

Christ is no myth and, since with Human birth

He forms new Heavens for blissful habitation —

There unto is the Freedom of the Nation;

All other trend is down to dark and dearth.

When from the darkness rainbowed birth comes pouring,

Your virtue heeds the voice, Eternity —

Re-echos: “Let them come.”‘ Tis Nature's plea

For broadening progress; Nay,‘ tis God imploring

The Human to take strength for Liberty,

Truth, Honor, to catch up to the stars, a-soaring.

O Daughters of brave sires, what is true glory?

No marsh-ward falling star, however bright.

‘ Tis inspirational; its upward flight

Lifts generations — such your Father's story,

And also yours, for is not that, too, gory?

You pour out your hearts blood in sons to fight

For honor, and cease not till every right

Has been set down in Triumph's inventory.

Oh, into daughters, too, old noble Mothers!

You pour out your hearts blood that, in your place,

They may fill up the ranks and, as in case

Of Molly Pitcher, man guns for their brothers,

And hearten firm, the trembling human race

To know, though brave men fall, there still comes others.

If Christ's foreshadowing in Juda's haze

Was of his grief,‘ tis of His triumph, here,

For, is not His celestrial glory clear

In Freedom for all men? First, gaseous rays

In Maryland, then rounded firm full blaze

In the Republic, it draws every sphere

Of Human welfare, whether far or near,

From depths occult to nights with dawns and days.

The Freedom of the Generation's longing

Reflects Lord Christ in glory, hour by hour,

With more distinctness, as you, with His power,

Free heart and brain from every brother-wronging,

And give your offspring, these, as flesh and dower,

To live and lead the millions, hither thronging.

Oh, ever Mothers — shaping robust youth

No less than infant, and as perfectly!

There's life blood to their veins from when on knee

To when thy battle, from your broadening ruth

For Human kind and fervent love of truth.

If, like their fathers, they have come to be

The wonder of the world, for liberty,

Your virtue,‘ tis, that in their valor greweth.

Oh, as the Roman Mother, when she showed

For jewels, her two sons, saw each of them

In Time's Tiara, glittering there a gem;

So, see your offspring shine. The light, bestowed

Your Fathers, in your sons is diamond flame,

Encircling Freedom's ocean-walled abode.

Is it Apocalyptic Vision, when

White-winged Columbus swoops from Spain's palmed shore

And, from dark depths, lifts at San Salvador,

A continent, adrip with streams which, then,

Become the fountain of the Psalmist's ken,

Where Right the heart, from hoof to horn foam-hoar

From craggy speed, slakes thirst, and, evermore,

Comes Hope's whole clattering herd?— you chant, “Amen.”

Aye, for your sires made earth this new creation

Where, from San Salvadore and Plymouth Reef

To Westward Mission Trails, ascends belief

In God and, therefore, in the Soul's Salvation

Through Freedom, in white, spiral spray which grief

Sees, spite earth-mists, or solar obscuration.