Hanford Lennox Gordon

The nation calls aloud again,
For Freedom wounded writhes in pain.
Gird on your armor, Northern men;
Drop scythe and sickle, square and pen;
A million bayonets gleam and flash;
A thousand cannon peal and crash;
Brothers and sons have gone before;
A million more! a million more!

Fire and sword! aye, sword and fire!
Let war be fierce and grim and dire;
Your path be marked by flame and smoke,
And tyrant's bones and fetters broke:
Stay not for foe's uplifted hand;
Sheathe not the sword; quench not the brand
Till Freedom reign from shore to shore,
Or might 'mid ashes smoke and gore.

If leader stay the vengeance-rod,
Let him beware the wrath of God;
The maddened millions long his trust
Will crush his puny bones to dust,
And all the la...

Float in the winds of heaven, O tattered Flag!
Emblem of hope to all the misruled world:
Thy field of golden stars is rent and red
Dyed in the blood of brothers madly spilled
By brother-hands upon the mother-soil.
O fatal Upas of the savage Nile,[CT]
Transplanted hither rooted multiplied
Watered with bitter tears and sending forth
Thy venom-vapors till the land is mad,
Thy day is done. A million blades are swung
To lay thy jungles open to the sun;
A million torches fire thy blasted boles;
A million hands shall drag thy fibers out
And feed the fires till every root and branch
Lie in dead ashes. From the blackened soil,
Enriched and moistened with fraternal blood,
Beside the palm shall spring the olive-tree,
And every breeze shall waft the happy ...

Silence is the voice of mighty things.
In silence dropped the acorn in the rain;
In silence slept till sun-touched. Wondrous life
Peeped from the mold and oped its eyes on morn.
Up-grew in silence through a thousand years
The Titan-armed, gnarl-jointed, rugged oak,
Rock-rooted. Through his beard and shaggy locks
Soft breezes sung and tempests roared: the rain
A thousand summers trickled down his beard;
A thousand winters whitened on his head;
Yet spake he not. He, from his coigne of hills,
Beheld the rise and fall of empire, saw
The pageantry and perjury of kings,
The feudal barons and the slavish churls,
The peace of peasants; heard the merry song
Of mowers singing to the swing of scythes,
The solemn-voiced, low-wailing funeral dirge
Winding slow-paced w...

Spirit of Liberty,
Wake in the Land!
Sons of our Forefathers,
Raise the strong hand!
Burn in each heart anew
Liberty's fires;
Wave the old Flag again,
Flag of our sires;
Glow all thy stars again,
Banner of Light!
Wave o'er us forever,
Emblem of might;
God for our Banner!
God for the Right!

Minions of Tyranny,
Tremble and kneel!
The sons of the Pilgrims
Are sharpening their steel.
Pledge for our Land again
Honor and life;
Wave the old Flag again;
On to the strife!
Shades of our Forefathers,
Witness our fright!
Wave o'er us forever,
Emblem of might;
God for our Banner!
God for our Right!

Stibor had led in many a fight,
And broken a score of swords
In furious frays and bloody raids
Against the Turkish hordes.

And Sigismund, the Polish king,
Who joined the Magyar bands,
Bestowed upon the valiant knight
A broad estate of lands.

Once when the wars were o'er, the knight
Was holding wassail high,
And the valiant men that followed him
Were at the revelry.

Betzko, his Jester, pleased him so
He vowed it his the task
To do whatever in human power
His witty Fool might ask.

"Build on yon cliff," the Jester cried,
In drunken jollity,
"A mighty castle high and wide,
And name it after me."

"Ah, verily a Jester's prayer,"
Exclaimed the knightly crew,
"To ask of such a noble lord
What you know he...

White-haired and hoary-bearded, who art thou
That speedest on, albeit bent with age,
Even as a youth that followeth after dreams?
Whence are thy feet, and whither trends thy way?

Stayed not his hurried steps, but as he passed
His low, hoarse answer fell upon the wind:
"Go thou and question yonder mountain-peaks;
Go thou and ask the hoary-heaving main;
Nay, if thou wilt, the great, globed, silent stars
That sail innumerable the shoreless sea,
And let the eldest answer if he may.
Lo the unnumbered myriad, myriad worlds
Rolling around innumerable suns,
Through all the boundless, bottomless abyss,
Are but as grains of sand upwhirled and flung
By roaring winds and scattered on the sea.
I have beheld them and my hand hath sown.

"Far-twinkling faint ...

Poet:

"Why this fever why this sighing?
Why this restless longing dying
For a something dreamy something,
Undefined, and yet defying
All the pride and power of manhood?

"O these years of sin and sorrow!
Smiling while the iron harrow
Of a keen and biting longing
Tears and quivers in the marrow
Of my being every moment
Of my very inmost being.

"What to me the mad ambition
For men's praise and proud position
Struggling, fighting to the summit
Of its vain and earthly mission,
To lie down on bed of ashes
Bed of barren, bitter ashes?

"Cure this fever? I have tried it;
Smothered, drenched it and defied it
With a will of brass and iron;
Every smile and look denied it;
Yet it heeded not denying,
And it m...

Change is the order of the universe.
Worlds wax and wane; suns die and stars are born.
Two atoms of cosmic dust unite, cohere
And lo the building of a world begun.
On all things high or low, or great or small
Earth, ocean, mountain, mammoth, midge and man,
On mind and matter lo perpetual change
God's fiat stamped! The very bones of man
Change as he grows from infancy to age.
His loves, his hates, his tastes, his fancies, change.
His blood and brawn demand a change of food;
His mind as well: the sweetest harp of heaven
Were hateful if it played the selfsame tune
Forever, and the fairest flower that gems
The garden, if it bloomed throughout the year,
Would blush unsought. The most delicious fruits
Pall on our palate if we taste too oft,
And Hyblan honey tur...

Our columns are broken, defeated, and fled;
We are gathered, a few from the flying and dead,
Where the green flag is up and our wounded remain
Imploring for water and groaning in pain.
Lo the blood-spattered bosom, the shot-shattered limb,
The hand-clutch of fear as the vision grows dim,
The half-uttered prayer and the blood-fettered breath,
The cold marble brow and the calm face of death.
O proud were these forms at the dawning of morn,
When they sprang to the call of the shrill bugle-horn:
There are mothers and wives that await them afar;
God help them! Is this then the glory of war?
But hark! hear the cries from the field of despair;
"The Black-Horse" are charging the fugitives there;
They gallop the field o'er the dying and dead,
And their blades with the blood...

On they ride on they ride
Only three hundred,
Ride the brave Body-Guard,
From the "Prairie Scouts" sundered:
Two thousand riflemen,
Ambushed on either side,
The signal of slaughter bide:
Ho! has the farmer-guide
Led them astray and lied?
How can they pass the wood?
On they ride on they ride
Fearlessly, readily,
Silently, steadily
Ride the brave Body-Guard
Led by Zagonyi.

Up leap the Southrons there;
Loud breaks the battle-blare;
Now swings his hat in air;
Flashes his saber bare:
"Draw sabers; follow me!"
Shouts the brave Captain:
"Union and Liberty!"
Thunders the Captain.
Three hundred sabers flash;
Three hundred Guardsmen dash
On to the fierce attack;
Into the cul-de-sac
Plunge ...

Frail are the best of us, brothers
God's charity cover us all
Yet we ask for perfection in others,
And scoff when they stumble and fall.
Shall we give him a fish or a serpent
Who stretches his hand in his need?
Let the proud give a stone, but the manly
Will give him a hand full of bread.

Let us search our own hearts and behavior
Ere we cast at a brother a stone,
And remember the words of the Savior
To the frail and unfortunate one;
Remember when others displease us
The Nazarene's holy command,
For the only word written by Jesus
Was charity writ in the sand.

Bear and forbear, I counsel thee,
Forgive and be forgiven,
For Charity is the golden key
That opens the gate of heaven.

Chickadee, chickadee, chickadee-dee!
That was the song that he sang to me Sang
from his perch in the willow tree
Chickadee, chickadee, chickadee-dee.
My little brown bird,
The song that I heard
Was a happier song than the minstrels sing
A paean of joy and a carol of spring;
And my heart leaped throbbing and sang with thee
Chickadee, chickadee, chickadee-dee.

My birdie looked wise
With his little black eyes,
As he peeked and peered from his perch at me
With a throbbing throat and a flutter of glee,
As if he would say
Sing trouble away,
Chickadee, chickadee, chickadee-dee.

Only one note
From his silver throat;
Only one word
From my wise little bird;
But a sweeter note or a wiser word
From the tongue of mortal I never hav...

I


From church and chapel and dome and tower,
Near far and everywhere,
The merry bells chime loud and clear
Upon the frosty air.

All down the marble avenues
The lamp-lit casements glow,
And from an hundred palaces
Glad carols float and flow.

A thousand lamps from street to street
Blaze on the dusky air,
And light the way for happy feet
To carol, praise and prayer.

'Tis Christmas eve. In church and hall
The laden fir-trees bend;
Glad children throng the festival
And grandsires too attend.

Fur-wrapped and gemmed with pearls and gold,
Proud ladies rich and fair
As Egypt's splendid queen of old
In all her pomp are there.

And many a costly, golden gift
Hangs on each Christmas-tree,
While ro...

Down into the darkness at last, Daniel, down into the darkness at last;
Laid in the lap of our Mother, Daniel, sleeping the dreamless sleep,
Sleeping the sleep of the babe unborn the pure and the perfect rest:
Aye, and is it not better than this fitful fever and pain?
Aye, and is it not better, if only the dead soul knew?

Joy was there in the spring-time and hope like a blossoming rose,
When the wine-blood of youth ran tingling and throbbing in every vein;
Chirrup of robin and blue-bird in the white-blossomed apple and pear;
Carpets of green on the meadows spangled with dandelions;
Lowing of kine in the valleys, bleating of lambs on the hills;
Babble of brooks and the prattle of fountains that flashed in the sun;
Glad, merry voices, ripples of laughter, snatches of music and son...

The long winter wanes. On the wings
of the spring come the geese and the mallards;
On the bare oak the red-robin sings,
and the crocus peeps up on the prairies,
And the bobolink pipes, but he brings
of the blue-eyed, brave White Chief no tidings.
With the waning of winter, alas,
waned the life of the aged Ta-té-psin;
Ere the wild pansies peeped from the grass,
to the Land of the Spirits he journeyed;
Like a babe in its slumber he passed,
or the snow from the hill-tops of April;
And the dark-eyed Winona, at last,
stood alone by the graves of her kindred.
When their myriad mouths opened the trees
to the sweet dew of heaven and the raindrops,
And the April showers fell on the leas,
on his mound fell the tears of Winona.
Round her drooping form gathered ...

Down the broad Ha-Ha Wák-pa[BS]
the band took their way to the Games at Keóza[8]
While the swift-footed hunters by land
ran the shores for the elk and the bison.
Like magás[BT] ride the birchen canoes
on the breast of the dark, winding river,
By the willow-fringed island they cruise,
by the grassy hills green to their summits;
By the lofty bluffs hooded with oaks
that darken the deep with their shadows;
And bright in the sun gleam the strokes
of the oars in the hands of the women.
With the band went Winona.
The oar plied the maid with the skill of a hunter.
They tarried a time on the shore of Remníca
the Lake of the Mountains.[BU]
There the fleet hunters followed the deer,
and the tho...

Do they think of us, say in the far distant West
On the Prairies of Peace, in the Valleys of Rest?
On the long dusty march when the suntide is hot,
O say, are their sons and their brothers forgot?
Are our names on their lips, is our comfort their care
When they kneel to the God of our fathers in prayer?
When at night on their warm, downy pillows they lie,
Wrapped in comfort and ease, do they think of us, say?
When the rain patters down on the roof overhead,
Do they think of the camps without shelter or bed?
Ah many a night on the cold ground we've lain
Chilled, chilled to the heart by the merciless rain,
And yet there stole o'er us the peace of the blest,
For our spirits went back to our homes in the West.
O we think of them, and it sharpens our steel,
When the bat...