France

France fallen! France arisen! France of the brave!
France of lost hopes! France of Promethean zeal!
Napoleon's France, that bruised the despot's heel
Of Europe, while the feudal world did rave.
Thou France that didst burst through the rock-bound grave
Which Germany and England joined to seal,
And undismayed didst seek the human weal,
Through which thou couldst thyself and others save -
The wreath of amaranth and eternal praise!
When every hand was 'gainst thee, so was ours.
Freedom remembers, and I can forget: -
Great are we by the faith our past betrays,
And noble now the great Republic flowers
Incarnate with the soul of Lafayette.

Edgar Lee Masters

Edgar Lee Masters was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist. Born in Kansas and raised in Illinois, Masters is best known for his collection of poems entitled "Spoon River Anthology" (1915), which is a series of epitaphs of residents of the fictional small town of Spoon River. His works reflect the everyday lives and frustrations of middle America. Masters also practiced law and wrote biographies for historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain.

Edgar Lee Masters

Mrs. Charles Bliss

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Perry Zoll

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Felix Schmidt

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Richard Bone

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

English

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O Glorious France

    You have become a forge of snow white fire,
    A crucible of molten steel, O France!
    Your sons are stars who cluster to a dawn
    And fade in light for you, O glorious France!
    They pass through meteor changes with a song
    Which to all islands and all continents
    Says life is neither comfort, wealth, nor fame,
    Nor quiet hearthstones, friendship, wife nor child
    Nor love, nor youth's delight, nor manhood's power,
    Nor many days spent in a chosen work,
    Nor honored merit, nor the patterned theme
    Of daily labor, nor the crowns nor wreaths
    Or seventy years.

    These are not all of life,
    O France, whose sons amid the rolling thunder
    Of cannon stand in trenches where the dead
    Clog the ensanguinéd ice. But li...

Edgar Lee Masters

Arms And The Man. - Welcome To France.

But, in that fiery zone
She upriseth not alone,
Over all the bloody fields
Glitter Amazonian shields;
While through the mists of years
Another form appears,
And as I bow my head
Already you have said: -
    'Tis France!

Welcome to France!
From sea to sea,
With heart and hand!
Welcome to all within the land -
Thrice welcome let her be!

And to France
The Union here to-day
Gives the right of this array,
And folds her to her breast
As the friend that she loves best.
Yes to France.
The proud Ruler of the West
Bows her sun-illumined crest,
Grave and slow,
In a passion of fond memories of
One hundred years ago!

France's colors wave again
High above this tented plain,
Stream and flaunt, and blaze...

James Barron Hope

A Sentiment Offered At The Dinner To H. I. H. The Prince Napoleon, At The Revere House, September 25,1861

The land of sunshine and of song!
Her name your hearts divine;
To her the banquet's vows belong
Whose breasts have poured its wine;
Our trusty friend, our true ally
Through varied change and chance
So, fill your flashing goblets high, -
I give you, VIVE LA FRANCE!

Above our hosts in triple folds
The selfsame colors spread,
Where Valor's faithful arm upholds
The blue, the white, the red;
Alike each nation's glittering crest
Reflects the morning's glance, -
Twin eagles, soaring east and west
Once more, then, VIVE LA FRANCE!

Sister in trial! who shall count
Thy generous friendship's claim,
Whose blood ran mingling in the fount
That gave our land its name,
Till Yorktown saw in blended line
Our conquering arms advance,
And ...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Three Glorious Days.

("Frères, vous avez vos journées.")

[I., July, 1830.]


Youth of France, sons of the bold,
Your oak-leaf victor-wreaths behold!
Our civic-laurels - honored dead!
So bright your triumphs in life's morn,
Your maiden-standards hacked and torn,
On Austerlitz might lustre shed.

All that your fathers did re-done -
A people's rights all nobly won -
Ye tore them living from the shroud!
Three glorious days bright July's gift,
The Bastiles off our hearts ye lift!
Oh! of such deeds be ever proud!

Of patriot sires ye lineage claim,
Their souls shone in your eye of flame;
Commencing the great work was theirs;
On you the task to finish laid
Your fruitful mother, France, who bade
Flow in one day a hundred years.

E'...

Victor-Marie Hugo

France, The 18th Year Of These States

A great year and place;
A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother's heart closer than any yet.

I walk'd the shores of my Eastern Sea,
Heard over the waves the little voice,
Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the roar of cannon, curses, shouts, crash of falling buildings;
Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running--nor from the single corpses, nor those in heaps, nor those borne away in the tumbrils;
Was not so desperate at the battues of death--was not so shock'd at the repeated fusillades of the guns.

Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribution?
Could I wish humanity different?
Could I wish the people made of wood and stone?
Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?

O ...

Walt Whitman

O Star Of France

O star of France!
The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame,
Like some proud ship that led the fleet so long,
Beseems to-day a wreck, driven by the gale - a mastless hulk;
And 'mid its teeming, madden'd, half-drown'd crowds,
Nor helm nor helmsman.

Dim, smitten star!
Orb not of France alone - pale symbol of my soul, its dearest hopes,
The struggle and the daring - rage divine for liberty,
Of aspirations toward the far ideal - enthusiast's dreams of brotherhood,
Of terror to the tyrant and the priest.

Star crucified! by traitors sold!
Star panting o'er a land of death - heroic land!
Strange, passionate, mocking, frivolous land.

Miserable! yet for thy errors, vanities, sins, I will not now rebuke thee;
Thy unexampled woes and pangs have quell'...

Walt Whitman