Written by
Robert Hayden |
Her sleeping head with its great gelid mass
of serpents torpidly astir
burned into the mirroring shield--
a scathing image dire
as hated truth the mind accepts at last
and festers on.
I struck. The shield flashed bare.
Yet even as I lifted up the head
and started from that place
of gazing silences and terrored stone,
I thirsted to destroy.
None could have passed me then--
no garland-bearing girl, no priest
or staring boy--and lived.
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Written by
Victor Hugo |
("Sur une barricade.")
{June, 1871.}
Like Casabianca on the devastated deck,
In years yet younger, but the selfsame core.
Beside the battered barricado's restless wreck,
A lad stood splashed with gouts of guilty gore,
But gemmed with purest blood of patriot more.
Upon his fragile form the troopers' bloody grip
Was deeply dug, while sharply challenged they:
"Were you one of this currish crew?"—pride pursed his lip,
As firm as bandog's, brought the bull to bay—
While answered he: "I fought with others. Yea!"
"Prepare then to be shot! Go join that death-doomed row."
As paced he pertly past, a volley rang—
And as he fell in line, mock mercies once more flow
Of man's lead-lightning's sudden scathing pang,
But to his home-turned thoughts the balls but sang.
"Here's half-a-franc I saved to buy my mother's bread!"—
The captain started—who mourns not a dear,
The dearest! mother!—"Where is she, wolf-cub?" he said
Still gruffly. "There, d'ye see? not far from here."
"Haste! make it hers! then back to swell their bier."
He sprang aloof as springald from detested school,
Or ocean-rover from protected port.
"The little rascal has the laugh on us! no fool
To breast our bullets!"—but the scoff was short,
For soon! the rogue is racing from his court;
And with still fearless front he faces them and calls:
"READY! but level low—she's kissed these eyes!"
From cooling hands of men each rifle falls,
And their gray officer, in grave surprise,
Life grants the lad whilst his last comrade dies.
Brave youth! I know not well what urged thy act,
Whether thou'lt pass in palace, or die rackt;
But then, shone on the guns, a sublime soul.—
A Bayard-boy's, bound by his pure parole!
Honor redeemed though paid by parlous price,
Though lost be sunlit sports, wild boyhood's spice,
The Gates, the cheers of mates for bright device!
Greeks would, whilom, have choicely clasped and circled thee,
Set thee the first to shield some new Thermopylae;
Thy deed had touched and tuned their true Tyrtaeus tongue,
And staged by Aeschylus, grouped thee grand gods among.
And thy lost name (now known no more) been gilt and graved
On cloud-kissed column, by the sweet south ocean laved.
From us no crown! no honors from the civic sheaf—
Purely this poet's tear-bejewelled, aye-green leaf!
H.L.W.
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Written by
Robert Seymour Bridges |
Sense with keenest edge unusèd,
Yet unsteel'd by scathing fire;
Lovely feet as yet unbruisèd
On the ways of dark desire;
Sweetest hope that lookest smiling
O'er the wilderness defiling!
Why such beauty, to be blighted
By the swarm of foul destruction?
Why such innocence delighted,
When sin stalks to thy seduction?
All the litanies e'er chaunted
Shall not keep thy faith undaunted.
I have pray'd the sainted Morning
To unclasp her hands to hold thee;
From resignful Eve's adorning
Stol'n a robe of peace to enfold thee;
With all charms of man's contriving
Arm'd thee for thy lonely striving.
Me too once unthinking Nature,
—Whence Love's timeless mockery took me,—
Fashion'd so divine a creature,
Yea, and like a beast forsook me.
I forgave, but tell the measure
Of her crime in thee, my treasure.
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Written by
Paul Laurence Dunbar |
A song for the unsung heroes who rose in the country's need,
When the life of the land was threatened by the slaver's cruel greed,
For the men who came from the cornfield, who came from the plough and the flail,
Who rallied round when they heard the sound of the mighty man of the rail.
They laid them down in the valleys, they laid them down in the wood,
And the world looked on at the work they did, and whispered, "It is good."[Pg 197]
They fought their way on the hillside, they fought their way in the glen,
And God looked down on their sinews brown, and said, "I have made them men."
They went to the blue lines gladly, and the blue lines took them in,
And the men who saw their muskets' fire thought not of their dusky skin.
The gray lines rose and melted beneath their scathing showers,
And they said, "'T is true, they have force to do, these old slave boys of ours."
Ah, Wagner saw their glory, and Pillow knew their blood,
That poured on a nation's altar, a sacrificial flood.
Port Hudson heard their war-cry that smote its smoke-filled air,
And the old free fires of their savage sires again were kindled there.
They laid them down where the rivers the greening valleys gem.
And the song of the thund'rous cannon was their sole requiem,
And the great smoke wreath that mingled its hue with the dusky cloud,
Was the flag that furled o'er a saddened world, and the sheet that made their shroud.
Oh, Mighty God of the Battles Who held them in Thy hand,
Who gave them strength through the whole day's length, to fight for their native land,
They are lying dead on the hillsides, they are lying dead on the plain,
And we have not fire to smite the lyre and sing them one brief strain.
Give, Thou, some seer the power to sing them in their might,
The men who feared the master's whip, but did not fear the fight;
That he may tell of their virtues as minstrels did of old,
Till the pride of face and the hate of race grow obsolete and cold.
A song for the unsung heroes who stood the awful test,
When the humblest host that the land could boast went forth to meet the best;
A song for the unsung heroes who fell on the bloody sod,[Pg 198]
Who fought their way from night to day and struggled up to God.
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Written by
Victor Hugo |
("Temps futurs.")
{Part "Lux," Jersey, Dec. 16-20, 1853.}
O vision of the coming time!
When man has 'scaped the trackless slime
And reached the desert spring;
When sands are crossed, the sward invites
The worn to rest 'mid rare delights
And gratefully to sing.
E'en now the eye that's levelled high,
Though dimly, can the hope espy
So solid soon, one day;
For every chain must then be broke,
And hatred none will dare evoke,
And June shall scatter May.
E'en now amid our misery
The germ of Union many see,
And through the hedge of thorn,
Like to a bee that dawn awakes,
On, Progress strides o'er shattered stakes,
With solemn, scathing scorn.
Behold the blackness shrink, and flee!
Behold the world rise up so free
Of coroneted things!
Whilst o'er the distant youthful States,
Like Amazonian bosom-plates,
Spread Freedom's shielding wings.
Ye, liberated lands, we hail!
Your sails are whole despite the gale!
Your masts are firm, and will not fail—
The triumph follows pain!
Hear forges roar! the hammer clanks—
It beats the time to nations' thanks—
At last, a peaceful strain!
'Tis rust, not gore, that gnaws the guns,
And shattered shells are but the runs
Where warring insects cope;
And all the headsman's racks and blades
And pincers, tools of tyrants' aids,
Are buried with the rope.
Upon the sky-line glows i' the dark
The Sun that now is but a spark;
But soon will be unfurled—
The glorious banner of us all,
The flag that rises ne'er to fall,
Republic of the World!
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Written by
Emily Dickinson |
Unworthy of her Breast
Though by that scathing test
What Soul survive?
By her exacting light
How counterfeit the white
We chiefly have!
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Written by
Robert William Service |
That scathing word I used in scorn
(Though half a century ago)
Comes back to me this April morn,
Like boomerang to work me woe;
Comes back to me with bitter blame
(Though apple boughs are blossoming),
And oh! the anguish of my shame
Is sharper than a serpent's sting!
Age sensitizes us to pain,
And when remembrance of some word
We spoke in wrath return again,
It stab is like a driven sword. . . .
And if in some celestial span
Our hearts in penitence may bleed
For all the hurt we've done to man -
Ah, that would be a hell indeed!
So friends, be careful of your words,
Though other breasts may meet their steel,
Lest they return like vengeful swords,
Till yours the wounds that never heal,
For Age the heart to mercy mellows;
Foul memories haunt like evil elves:
let us be gentle to our fellows,
And win God's mercy for ourselves.
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