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Best Famous Battle Poems

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Written by Aleister Crowley | Create an image from this poem

A Birthday

 "Aug." 10, 1911.

Full moon to-night; and six and twenty years
Since my full moon first broke from angel spheres!
A year of infinite love unwearying ---
No circling seasons, but perennial spring!
A year of triumph trampling through defeat,
The first made holy and the last made sweet
By this same love; a year of wealth and woe,
Joy, poverty, health, sickness --- all one glow
In the pure light that filled our firmament
Of supreme silence and unbarred extent,
Wherein one sacrament was ours, one Lord,
One resurrection, one recurrent chord,
One incarnation, one descending dove,
All these being one, and that one being Love!

You sent your spirit into tunes; my soul
Yearned in a thousand melodies to enscroll
Its happiness: I left no flower unplucked
That might have graced your garland. I induct
Tragedy, comedy, farce, fable, song,
Each longing a little, each a little long,
But each aspiring only to express
Your excellence and my unworthiness --- 
Nay! but my worthiness, since I was sense
And spirit too of that same excellence.

So thus we solved the earth's revolving riddle:
I could write verse, and you could play the fiddle,
While, as for love, the sun went through the signs,
And not a star but told him how love twines
A wreath for every decanate, degree,
Minute and second, linked eternally
In chains of flowers that never fading are,
Each one as sempiternal as a star.

Let me go back to your last birthday. Then
I was already your one man of men
Appointed to complete you, and fulfil
From everlasting the eternal will.
We lay within the flood of crimson light
In my own balcony that August night,
And conjuring the aright and the averse
Created yet another universe.

We worked together; dance and rite and spell
Arousing heaven and constraining hell.
We lived together; every hour of rest
Was honied from your tiger-lily breast.
We --- oh what lingering doubt or fear betrayed
My life to fate! --- we parted. Was I afraid?
I was afraid, afraid to live my love,
Afraid you played the serpent, I the dove,
Afraid of what I know not. I am glad 
Of all the shame and wretchedness I had,
Since those six weeks have taught me not to doubt you,
And also that I cannot live without you.

Then I came back to you; black treasons rear
Their heads, blind hates, deaf agonies of fear,
Cruelty, cowardice, falsehood, broken pledges,
The temple soiled with senseless sacrileges,
Sickness and poverty, a thousand evils,
Concerted malice of a million devils; ---
You never swerved; your high-pooped galleon
Went marvellously, majestically on
Full-sailed, while every other braver bark
Drove on the rocks, or foundered in the dark.

Then Easter, and the days of all delight!
God's sun lit noontide and his moon midnight,
While above all, true centre of our world,
True source of light, our great love passion-pearled
Gave all its life and splendour to the sea
Above whose tides stood our stability.

Then sudden and fierce, no monitory moan,
Smote the mad mischief of the great cyclone.
How far below us all its fury rolled!
How vainly sulphur tries to tarnish gold!
We lived together: all its malice meant
Nothing but freedom of a continent!

It was the forest and the river that knew
The fact that one and one do not make two. 
We worked, we walked, we slept, we were at ease,
We cried, we quarrelled; all the rocks and trees
For twenty miles could tell how lovers played,
And we could count a kiss for every glade.
Worry, starvation, illness and distress?
Each moment was a mine of happiness.

Then we grew tired of being country mice,
Came up to Paris, lived our sacrifice
There, giving holy berries to the moon,
July's thanksgiving for the joys of June.

And you are gone away --- and how shall I
Make August sing the raptures of July?
And you are gone away --- what evil star
Makes you so competent and popular?
How have I raised this harpy-hag of Hell's
Malice --- that you are wanted somewhere else?
I wish you were like me a man forbid,
Banned, outcast, nice society well rid
Of the pair of us --- then who would interfere
With us? --- my darling, you would now be here!

But no! we must fight on, win through, succeed,
Earn the grudged praise that never comes to meed,
Lash dogs to kennel, trample snakes, put bit
In the mule-mouths that have such need of it,
Until the world there's so much to forgive in
Becomes a little possible to live in.

God alone knows if battle or surrender
Be the true courage; either has its splendour. 
But since we chose the first, God aid the right,
And damn me if I fail you in the fight!
God join again the ways that lie apart,
And bless the love of loyal heart to heart!
God keep us every hour in every thought,
And bring the vessel of our love to port!

These are my birthday wishes. Dawn's at hand,
And you're an exile in a lonely land.
But what were magic if it could not give
My thought enough vitality to live?
Do not then dream this night has been a loss!
All night I have hung, a god, upon the cross;
All night I have offered incense at the shrine;
All night you have been unutterably mine,
Miner in the memory of the first wild hour
When my rough grasp tore the unwilling flower
From your closed garden, mine in every mood,
In every tense, in every attitude,
In every possibility, still mine
While the sun's pomp and pageant, sign to sign,
Stately proceeded, mine not only so
In the glamour of memory and austral glow
Of ardour, but by image of my brow
Stronger than sense, you are even here and now
Miner, utterly mine, my sister and my wife,
Mother of my children, mistress of my life!

O wild swan winging through the morning mist!
The thousand thousand kisses that we kissed, 
The infinite device our love devised
If by some chance its truth might be surprised,
Are these all past? Are these to come? Believe me,
There is no parting; they can never leave me.
I have built you up into my heart and brain
So fast that we can never part again.
Why should I sing you these fantastic psalms
When all the time I have you in my arms?
Why? 'tis the murmur of our love that swells
Earth's dithyrambs and ocean's oracles.

But this is dawn; my soul shall make its nest
Where your sighs swing from rapture into rest
Love's thurible, your tiger-lily breast.


Written by Langston Hughes | Create an image from this poem

Freedoms Plow

 When a man starts out with nothing,
 When a man starts out with his hands
 Empty, but clean,
 When a man starts to build a world,
He starts first with himself
And the faith that is in his heart-
The strength there,
The will there to build.

First in the heart is the dream-
Then the mind starts seeking a way.
His eyes look out on the world,
On the great wooded world,
On the rich soil of the world,
On the rivers of the world.

The eyes see there materials for building,
See the difficulties, too, and the obstacles.
The mind seeks a way to overcome these obstacles.
The hand seeks tools to cut the wood,
To till the soil, and harness the power of the waters.
Then the hand seeks other hands to help,
A community of hands to help-
Thus the dream becomes not one man's dream alone,
But a community dream.
Not my dream alone, but our dream.
Not my world alone,
But your world and my world,
Belonging to all the hands who build.

A long time ago, but not too long ago,
Ships came from across the sea
Bringing the Pilgrims and prayer-makers,
Adventurers and booty seekers,
Free men and indentured servants,
Slave men and slave masters, all new-
To a new world, America!

With billowing sails the galleons came
Bringing men and dreams, women and dreams.
In little bands together,
Heart reaching out to heart,
Hand reaching out to hand,
They began to build our land.
Some were free hands
Seeking a greater freedom,
Some were indentured hands
Hoping to find their freedom,
Some were slave hands
Guarding in their hearts the seed of freedom,
But the word was there always:
 Freedom.

Down into the earth went the plow
In the free hands and the slave hands,
In indentured hands and adventurous hands,
Turning the rich soil went the plow in many hands
That planted and harvested the food that fed
And the cotton that clothed America.
Clang against the trees went the ax into many hands
That hewed and shaped the rooftops of America.
Splash into the rivers and the seas went the boat-hulls
That moved and transported America.
Crack went the whips that drove the horses
Across the plains of America.
Free hands and slave hands,
Indentured hands, adventurous hands,
White hands and black hands
Held the plow handles,
Ax handles, hammer handles,
Launched the boats and whipped the horses
That fed and housed and moved America.
Thus together through labor,
All these hands made America.

Labor! Out of labor came villages
And the towns that grew cities.
Labor! Out of labor came the rowboats
And the sailboats and the steamboats,
Came the wagons, and the coaches,
Covered wagons, stage coaches,
Out of labor came the factories,
Came the foundries, came the railroads.
Came the marts and markets, shops and stores,
Came the mighty products moulded, manufactured,
Sold in shops, piled in warehouses,
Shipped the wide world over:
Out of labor-white hands and black hands-
Came the dream, the strength, the will,
And the way to build America.
Now it is Me here, and You there.
Now it's Manhattan, Chicago,
Seattle, New Orleans,
Boston and El Paso-
Now it's the U.S.A.

A long time ago, but not too long ago, a man said:
 ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL--
 ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR
 WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS--
 AMONG THESE LIFE, LIBERTY
 AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.
His name was Jefferson. There were slaves then,
But in their hearts the slaves believed him, too,
And silently too for granted
That what he said was also meant for them.
It was a long time ago,
But not so long ago at that, Lincoln said:
 NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH
 TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN
 WITHOUT THAT OTHER'S CONSENT.
There were slaves then, too,
But in their hearts the slaves knew
What he said must be meant for every human being-
Else it had no meaning for anyone.
Then a man said:
 BETTER TO DIE FREE
 THAN TO LIVE SLAVES
He was a colored man who had been a slave
But had run away to freedom.
And the slaves knew
What Frederick Douglass said was true.

With John Brown at Harper's Ferry, ******* died.
John Brown was hung.
Before the Civil War, days were dark,
And nobody knew for sure
When freedom would triumph
"Or if it would," thought some.
But others new it had to triumph.
In those dark days of slavery,
Guarding in their hearts the seed of freedom,
The slaves made up a song:
 Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
That song meant just what it said: Hold On!
Freedom will come!
 Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
Out of war it came, bloody and terrible!
But it came!
Some there were, as always,
Who doubted that the war would end right,
That the slaves would be free,
Or that the union would stand,
But now we know how it all came out.
Out of the darkest days for people and a nation,
We know now how it came out.
There was light when the battle clouds rolled away.
There was a great wooded land,
And men united as a nation.

America is a dream.
The poet says it was promises.
The people say it is promises-that will come true.
The people do not always say things out loud,
Nor write them down on paper.
The people often hold
Great thoughts in their deepest hearts
And sometimes only blunderingly express them,
Haltingly and stumblingly say them,
And faultily put them into practice.
The people do not always understand each other.
But there is, somewhere there,
Always the trying to understand,
And the trying to say,
"You are a man. Together we are building our land."

America!
Land created in common,
Dream nourished in common,
Keep your hand on the plow! Hold on!
If the house is not yet finished,
Don't be discouraged, builder!
If the fight is not yet won,
Don't be weary, soldier!
The plan and the pattern is here,
Woven from the beginning
Into the warp and woof of America:
 ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.
 NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH
 TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN
 WITHOUT HIS CONSENT.
 BETTER DIE FREE,
 THAN TO LIVE SLAVES.
Who said those things? Americans!
Who owns those words? America!
Who is America? You, me!
We are America!
To the enemy who would conquer us from without,
We say, NO!
To the enemy who would divide
And conquer us from within,
We say, NO!
 FREEDOM!
 BROTHERHOOD!
 DEMOCRACY!
To all the enemies of these great words:
We say, NO!

A long time ago,
An enslaved people heading toward freedom
Made up a song:
 Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
The plow plowed a new furrow
Across the field of history.
Into that furrow the freedom seed was dropped.
From that seed a tree grew, is growing, will ever grow.
That tree is for everybody,
For all America, for all the world.
May its branches spread and shelter grow
Until all races and all peoples know its shade.
 KEEP YOUR HAND ON THE PLOW! HOLD ON!
Written by Victor Hugo | Create an image from this poem

A Sunset

 I love the evenings, passionless and fair, I love the evens, 
Whether old manor-fronts their ray with golden fulgence leavens, 
In numerous leafage bosomed close; 
Whether the mist in reefs of fire extend its reaches sheer, 
Or a hundred sunbeams splinter in an azure atmosphere 
On cloudy archipelagos. 

Oh, gaze ye on the firmament! a hundred clouds in motion, 
Up-piled in the immense sublime beneath the winds' commotion, 
Their unimagined shapes accord: 
Under their waves at intervals flame a pale levin through, 
As if some giant of the air amid the vapors drew 
A sudden elemental sword. 

The sun at bay with splendid thrusts still keeps the sullen fold; 
And momently at distance sets, as a cupola of gold, 
The thatched roof of a cot a-glance; 
Or on the blurred horizon joins his battle with the haze; 
Or pools the blooming fields about with inter-isolate blaze, 
Great moveless meres of radiance. 

Then mark you how there hangs athwart the firmament's swept track, 
Yonder a mighty crocodile with vast irradiant back, 
A triple row of pointed teeth? 
Under its burnished belly slips a ray of eventide, 
The flickerings of a hundred glowing clouds in tenebrous side 
With scales of golden mail ensheathe. 

Then mounts a palace, then the air vibrates--the vision flees. 
Confounded to its base, the fearful cloudy edifice 
Ruins immense in mounded wrack; 
Afar the fragments strew the sky, and each envermeiled cone 
Hangeth, peak downward, overhead, like mountains overthrown 
When the earthquake heaves its hugy back. 

These vapors, with their leaden, golden, iron, bronzèd glows, 
Where the hurricane, the waterspout, thunder, and hell repose, 
Muttering hoarse dreams of destined harms,-- 
'Tis God who hangs their multitude amid the skiey deep, 
As a warrior that suspendeth from the roof-tree of his keep 
His dreadful and resounding arms! 

All vanishes! The Sun, from topmost heaven precipitated, 
Like a globe of iron which is tossed back fiery red 
Into the furnace stirred to fume, 
Shocking the cloudy surges, plashed from its impetuous ire, 
Even to the zenith spattereth in a flecking scud of fire 
The vaporous and inflamèd spaume. 

O contemplate the heavens! Whenas the vein-drawn day dies pale, 
In every season, every place, gaze through their every veil? 
With love that has not speech for need! 
Beneath their solemn beauty is a mystery infinite: 
If winter hue them like a pall, or if the summer night 
Fantasy them starre brede.
Written by Edgar Allan Poe | Create an image from this poem

Bridal Ballad

 The ring is on my hand, 
And the wreath is on my brow; 
Satin and jewels grand 
Are all at my command, 
And I am happy now. 
And my lord he loves me well; 
But, when first he breathed his vow, 
I felt my bosom swell- 
For the words rang as a knell, 
And the voice seemed his who fell 
In the battle down the dell, 
And who is happy now. 

But he spoke to re-assure me, 
And he kissed my pallid brow, 
While a reverie came o'er me, 
And to the church-yard bore me, 
And I sighed to him before me, 
Thinking him dead D'Elormie, 
"Oh, I am happy now!" 

And thus the words were spoken, 
And this the plighted vow, 
And, though my faith be broken, 
And, though my heart be broken, 
Here is a ring, as token 
That I am happy now! 

Would God I could awaken! 
For I dream I know not how! 
And my soul is sorely shaken 
Lest an evil step be taken,- 
Lest the dead who is forsaken 
May not be happy now.
Written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | Create an image from this poem

A Psalm of Life

What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist


TELL me not in mournful numbers  
Life is but an empty dream!¡ª 
For the soul is dead that slumbers  
And things are not what they seem. 

Life is real! Life is earnest! 5 
And the grave is not its goal; 
Dust thou art to dust returnest  
Was not spoken of the soul. 

Not enjoyment and not sorrow  
Is our destined end or way; 10 
But to act that each to-morrow 
Find us farther than to-day. 

Art is long and Time is fleeting  
And our hearts though stout and brave  
Still like muffled drums are beating 15 
Funeral marches to the grave. 

In the world's broad field of battle  
In the bivouac of Life  
Be not like dumb driven cattle! 
Be a hero in the strife! 20 

Trust no Future howe'er pleasant! 
Let the dead Past bury its dead! 
Act ¡ªact in the living Present! 
Heart within and God o'erhead! 

Lives of great men all remind us 25 
We can make our lives sublime  
And departing leave behind us 
Footprints on the sands of time; 

Footprints that perhaps another  
Sailing o'er life's solemn main 30 
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother  
Seeing shall take heart again. 

Let us then be up and doing  
With a heart for any fate; 
Still achieving still pursuing 35 
Learn to labor and to wait. 


Written by Sarojini Naidu | Create an image from this poem

To My Children

 Jaya Surya

GOLDEN sun of victory, born 
In my life's unclouded morn, 
In my lambent sky of love, 
May your growing glory prove 
Sacred to your consecration, 
To my heart and to my nation. 
Sun of victory, may you be 
Sun of song and liberty. 

Padmaja

Lotus-maiden, you who claim 
All the sweetness of your name, 
Lakshmi, fortune's queen, defend you, 
Lotus-born like you, and send you 
Balmy moons of love to bless you, 
Gentle joy-winds to caress you. 
Lotus-maiden, may you be 
Fragrant of all ecstasy.

Ranadheera

Little lord of battle, hail 
In your newly-tempered mail! 
Learn to conquer, learn to fight 
In the foremost flanks of right, 
Like Valmiki's heroes bold, 
Rubies girt in epic gold. 
Lord of battle, may you be, 
Lord of love and chivalry.

Lilamani

Limpid jewel of delight 
Severed from the tender night 
Of your sheltering mother-mine, 
Leap and sparkle, dance and shine, 
Blithely and securely set 
In love's magic coronet. 
Living jewel, may you be 
Laughter-bound and sorrow-free.
Written by Rudyard Kipling | Create an image from this poem

Recessional

1897


God of our fathers, known of old,
   Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
   Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;
   The Captains and the Kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
   An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away;
   On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
   Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
   Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
   Or lesser breeds without the Law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
   In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
   And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word—
Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!
Written by Billy Collins | Create an image from this poem

Forgetfulness

 The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
Written by William Vaughn Moody | Create an image from this poem

An Ode in Time of Hesitation

 After seeing at Boston the statue of Robert Gould Shaw, killed while storming Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, at the head of the first enlisted ***** regiment, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts.


I 

Before the solemn bronze Saint Gaudens made 
To thrill the heedless passer's heart with awe, 
And set here in the city's talk and trade 
To the good memory of Robert Shaw, 
This bright March morn I stand, 
And hear the distant spring come up the land; 
Knowing that what I hear is not unheard 
Of this boy soldier and his ***** band, 
For all their gaze is fixed so stern ahead, 
For all the fatal rhythm of their tread. 
The land they died to save from death and shame 
Trembles and waits, hearing the spring's great name, 
And by her pangs these resolute ghosts are stirred. 


II 

Through street and mall the tides of people go 
Heedless; the trees upon the Common show 
No hint of green; but to my listening heart 
The still earth doth impart 
Assurance of her jubilant emprise, 
And it is clear to my long-searching eyes 
That love at last has might upon the skies. 
The ice is runneled on the little pond; 
A telltale patter drips from off the trees; 
The air is touched with southland spiceries, 
As if but yesterday it tossed the frond 
Of pendant mosses where the live-oaks grow 
Beyond Virginia and the Carolines, 
Or had its will among the fruits and vines 
Of aromatic isles asleep beyond 
Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. 


III 

Soon shall the Cape Ann children shout in glee, 
Spying the arbutus, spring's dear recluse; 
Hill lads at dawn shall hearken the wild goose 
Go honking northward over Tennessee; 
West from Oswego to Sault Sainte-Marie, 
And on to where the Pictured Rocks are hung, 
And yonder where, gigantic, wilful, young, 
Chicago sitteth at the northwest gates, 
With restless violent hands and casual tongue 
Moulding her mighty fates, 
The Lakes shall robe them in ethereal sheen; 
And like a larger sea, the vital green 
Of springing wheat shall vastly be outflung 
Over Dakota and the prairie states. 
By desert people immemorial 
On Arizonan mesas shall be done 
Dim rites unto the thunder and the sun; 
Nor shall the primal gods lack sacrifice 
More splendid, when the white Sierras call 
Unto the Rockies straightway to arise 
And dance before the unveiled ark of the year, 
Sounding their windy cedars as for shawms, 
Unrolling rivers clear 
For flutter of broad phylacteries; 
While Shasta signals to Alaskan seas 
That watch old sluggish glaciers downward creep 
To fling their icebergs thundering from the steep, 
And Mariposa through the purple calms 
Gazes at far Hawaii crowned with palms 
Where East and West are met, -- 
A rich seal on the ocean's bosom set 
To say that East and West are twain, 
With different loss and gain: 
The Lord hath sundered them; let them be sundered yet. 


IV 

Alas! what sounds are these that come 
Sullenly over the Pacific seas, -- 
Sounds of ignoble battle, striking dumb 
The season's half-awakened ecstasies? 
Must I be humble, then, 
Now when my heart hath need of pride? 
Wild love falls on me from these sculptured men; 
By loving much the land for which they died 
I would be justified. 
My spirit was away on pinions wide 
To soothe in praise of her its passionate mood 
And ease it of its ache of gratitude. 
Too sorely heavy is the debt they lay 
On me and the companions of my day. 
I would remember now 
My country's goodliness, make sweet her name. 
Alas! what shade art thou 
Of sorrow or of blame 
Liftest the lyric leafage from her brow, 
And pointest a slow finger at her shame? 


V 

Lies! lies! It cannot be! The wars we wage 
Are noble, and our battles still are won 
By justice for us, ere we lift the gage. 
We have not sold our loftiest heritage. 
The proud republic hath not stooped to cheat 
And scramble in the market-place of war; 
Her forehead weareth yet its solemn star. 
Here is her witness: this, her perfect son, 
This delicate and proud New England soul 
Who leads despisèd men, with just-unshackled feet, 
Up the large ways where death and glory meet, 
To show all peoples that our shame is done, 
That once more we are clean and spirit-whole. 


VI 

Crouched in the sea fog on the moaning sand 
All night he lay, speaking some simple word 
From hour to hour to the slow minds that heard, 
Holding each poor life gently in his hand 
And breathing on the base rejected clay 
Till each dark face shone mystical and grand 
Against the breaking day; 
And lo, the shard the potter cast away 
Was grown a fiery chalice crystal-fine 
Fulfilled of the divine 
Great wine of battle wrath by God's ring-finger stirred. 
Then upward, where the shadowy bastion loomed 
Huge on the mountain in the wet sea light, 
Whence now, and now, infernal flowerage bloomed, 
Bloomed, burst, and scattered down its deadly seed, -- 
They swept, and died like freemen on the height, 
Like freemen, and like men of noble breed; 
And when the battle fell away at night 
By hasty and contemptuous hands were thrust 
Obscurely in a common grave with him 
The fair-haired keeper of their love and trust. 
Now limb doth mingle with dissolvèd limb 
In nature's busy old democracy 
To flush the mountain laurel when she blows 
Sweet by the southern sea, 
And heart with crumbled heart climbs in the rose: -- 
The untaught hearts with the high heart that knew 
This mountain fortress for no earthly hold 
Of temporal quarrel, but the bastion old 
Of spiritual wrong, 
Built by an unjust nation sheer and strong, 
Expugnable but by a nation's rue 
And bowing down before that equal shrine 
By all men held divine, 
Whereof his band and he were the most holy sign. 


VII 

O bitter, bitter shade! 
Wilt thou not put the scorn 
And instant tragic question from thine eye? 
Do thy dark brows yet crave 
That swift and angry stave -- 
Unmeet for this desirous morn -- 
That I have striven, striven to evade? 
Gazing on him, must I not deem they err 
Whose careless lips in street and shop aver 
As common tidings, deeds to make his cheek 
Flush from the bronze, and his dead throat to speak? 
Surely some elder singer would arise, 
Whose harp hath leave to threaten and to mourn 
Above this people when they go astray. 
Is Whitman, the strong spirit, overworn? 
Has Whittier put his yearning wrath away? 
I will not and I dare not yet believe! 
Though furtively the sunlight seems to grieve, 
And the spring-laden breeze 
Out of the gladdening west is sinister 
With sounds of nameless battle overseas; 
Though when we turn and question in suspense 
If these things be indeed after these ways, 
And what things are to follow after these, 
Our fluent men of place and consequence 
Fumble and fill their mouths with hollow phrase, 
Or for the end-all of deep arguments 
Intone their dull commercial liturgies -- 
I dare not yet believe! My ears are shut! 
I will not hear the thin satiric praise 
And muffled laughter of our enemies, 
Bidding us never sheathe our valiant sword 
Till we have changed our birthright for a gourd 
Of wild pulse stolen from a barbarian's hut; 
Showing how wise it is to cast away 
The symbols of our spiritual sway, 
That so our hands with better ease 
May wield the driver's whip and grasp the jailer's keys. 


VIII 

Was it for this our fathers kept the law? 
This crown shall crown their struggle and their ruth? 
Are we the eagle nation Milton saw 
Mewing its mighty youth, 
Soon to possess the mountain winds of truth, 
And be a swift familiar of the sun 
Where aye before God's face his trumpets run? 
Or have we but the talons and the maw, 
And for the abject likeness of our heart 
Shall some less lordly bird be set apart? -- 
Some gross-billed wader where the swamps are fat? 
Some gorger in the sun? Some prowler with the bat? 


IX 

Ah no! 
We have not fallen so. 
We are our fathers' sons: let those who lead us know! 
'T was only yesterday sick Cuba's cry 
Came up the tropic wind, "Now help us, for we die!" 
Then Alabama heard, 
And rising, pale, to Maine and Idaho 
Shouted a burning word. 
Proud state with proud impassioned state conferred, 
And at the lifting of a hand sprang forth, 
East, west, and south, and north, 
Beautiful armies. Oh, by the sweet blood and young 
Shed on the awful hill slope at San Juan, 
By the unforgotten names of eager boys 
Who might have tasted girls' love and been stung 
With the old mystic joys 
And starry griefs, now the spring nights come on, 
But that the heart of youth is generous, -- 
We charge you, ye who lead us, 
Breathe on their chivalry no hint of stain! 
Turn not their new-world victories to gain! 
One least leaf plucked for chaffer from the bays 
Of their dear praise, 
One jot of their pure conquest put to hire, 
The implacable republic will require; 
With clamor, in the glare and gaze of noon, 
Or subtly, coming as a thief at night, 
But surely, very surely, slow or soon 
That insult deep we deeply will requite. 
Tempt not our weakness, our cupidity! 
For save we let the island men go free, 
Those baffled and dislaureled ghosts 
Will curse us from the lamentable coasts 
Where walk the frustrate dead. 
The cup of trembling shall be drainèd quite, 
Eaten the sour bread of astonishment, 
With ashes of the hearth shall be made white 
Our hair, and wailing shall be in the tent; 
Then on your guiltier head 
Shall our intolerable self-disdain 
Wreak suddenly its anger and its pain; 
For manifest in that disastrous light 
We shall discern the right 
And do it, tardily. -- O ye who lead, 
Take heed! 
Blindness we may forgive, but baseness we will smite.
Written by Walt Whitman | Create an image from this poem

I Sit and Look Out

 I SIT and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame; 
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with themselves, remorseful after
 deeds
 done; 
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt,
 desperate; 
I see the wife misused by her husband—I see the treacherous seducer of young women; 
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be hid—I see these
 sights on
 the earth;
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny—I see martyrs and prisoners; 
I observe a famine at sea—I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be
 kill’d, to
 preserve the lives of the rest; 
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor,
 and
 upon
 *******, and the like; 
All these—All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look out upon, 
See, hear, and am silent.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things