LITMIR.BIZ

      High on the world did our fathers of old,

      Under the stars and stripes,

      Blazon the name that we now must uphold,

      Under the stars and stripes.

      Vast in the past they have builded an arch

      Over which Freedom has lighted her torch.

      Follow it! Follow it! Come, let us march

      Under the stars and stripes!

      We in whose bodies the blood of them runs,

      Under the stars and stripes,

      We will acquit us as sons of their sons,

      Under the stars and stripes.

      Ever for justice, our heel upon wrong,

      We in the light of our vengeance thrice strong!

      Rally together! Come tramping along

      Under the stars and stripes!

      Out of our strength and a nation's great need,

      Under the stars and stripes,

      Heroes again as of old we shall breed,

      Under the stars and stripes.

      Broad to the winds be our banner unfurled!

      Straight in Spain's face let defiance be hurled!

      God on our side, we will battle the world

      Under the stars and stripes!

      Ah, not for us the Heavens that hold

      God's message of Promethean fire!

      The Flame that fell on bards of old

      To hallow and inspire.

      Yet let the Soul dream on and dare

      No lessSong's height that these possess:

      We can but fail; and may prepare

      The way to some success.

      Day after Day, young with eternal beauty,

      Pays flowery duty to the month and clime;

      Night after night erects a vasty portal

      Of stars immortal for the march of Time.

      But where are now the Glory and the Rapture,

      That once did capture me in cloud and stream?

      Where now the Joy that was both speech and silence?

      Where the beguilance that was fact and dream?

      I know that Earth and Heaven are as golden

      As they of olden made me feel and see;

      Not in themselves is lacking aught of power

      Through star and flower – something's lost in me.

      Return! Return! I cry, O Visions vanished,

      O Voices banished, to my Soul again!—

      The near Earth blossoms and the far Skies glisten,

      I look and listen, but, alas! in vain.

      Clad on with glowing beauty and the peace,

      Benign, of calm maturity, she stands

      Among her meadows and her orchard-lands,

      And on her mellowing gardens and her trees,

      Out of the ripe abundance of her hands,

      Bestows increase

      And fruitfulness, as, wrapped in sunny ease,

      Blue-eyed and blonde she goes,

      Upon her bosom Summer's richest rose.

      And he who follows where her footsteps lead,

      By hill and rock, by forest-side and stream,

      Shall glimpse the glory of her visible dream,

      In flower and fruit, in rounded nut and seed:

      She in whose path the very shadows gleam;

      Whose humblest weed

      Seems lovelier than June's loveliest flower, indeed,

      And sweeter to the smell

      Than April's self within a rainy dell.

      Hers is a sumptuous simplicity

      Within the fair Republic of her flowers,

      Where you may see her standing hours on hours,

      Breast-deep in gold, soft-holding up a bee

      To her hushed ear; or sitting under bowers

      Of greenery,

      A butterfly a-tilt upon her knee;

      Or, lounging on her hip,

      Dancing a cricket on her finger-tip.

      Aye, let me breathe hot scents that tell of you:

      The hoary catnip and the meadow-mint,

      On which the honour of your touch doth print

      Itself as odour. Let me drink the hue

      Of ironweed and mist-flow'r here that hint,

      With purple and blue,

      The rapture that your presence doth imbue

      Their inmost essence with,

      Immortal though as transient as a myth.

      Yea, let me feed on sounds that still assure

      Me where you hide: the brooks', whose happy din

      Tells where, the deep retired woods within,

      Disrobed, you bathe; the birds', whose drowsy lure

      Tells where you slumber, your warm-nestling chin

      Soft on the pure

      Pink cushion of your palm … What better cure

      For care and memory's ache

      Than to behold you so and watch you wake!

      To come in touch with mysteries

      Of beauty idealizing Earth,

      Go seek the hills, grown old with trees,

      The old hills wise with death and birth.

      There you may hear the heart that beats

      In streams, where music has its source;

      And in wild rocks of green retreats

      Behold the silent soul of force.

      Above the love that emanates

      From human passion, and reflects

      The flesh, must be the love that waits

      On Nature, whose high call elects

      None to her secrets save the few

      Who hold that facts are far less real

      Than dreams, with which all facts indue

      Themselves approaching the Ideal.

      There

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