PLYMOUTH ROCK.
Archaic sphinx, but speak to me
Of things when this old world was new,
When Chaos was baptized in fire,
Such secrets must be known to you.
Would that the magic wand were mine
To rend the silence! Yours the heart
More wise than babbling multitudes;
Of what strange scenes were you a part?
An offspring of some glacial slope,
You may have been a thing of grace
Some ancient caryatid poised,
To hold Earth’s architrave in place.
Mayhap you were a thunderbolt
By Vulcan forged for Thor, red hot;
A miracle was never made,
So this may all be true, or not.
A child of some wild catapult
Who toyed with Sisyphus, and then,
Broke loose, went tumbling down to earth,
To habitat with tribes of men.
A missile from Orion’s belt,
Some dullard chiseled out of clay;
Perchance some treasure, Glancus owned,
Before his Furies ran away.
The throne of Neptune washed ashore
From some old chamber of the sea;
A Dryad-altar, pagan-blest,
An aerolite, lo! such it be!
Made sacred by the pounding waves,
To mark the aeons on the slopes
Where time looks out to heavens afar,
And God again renews man’s hopes
And rallies him to dare and die,
For Liberty, through all the years,
To dyke and drain and build anew,
By labour, gladness, dreams and tears.
’Tis here I lift my humble prayers,
And thanks for Life’s sweet mysteries,
For joy of song within my soul,
And chant its solemn histories;
If kings shall reign, O make us kings,
On seas and on the land,
Kings of the One Great Church where all
Shall bow at Love’s command.
Thou prophet, orb, and corner-stone,
As things immortal are as one,
Clad in the garb of wonder-fire,
Of gloom and the Olympian sun,
I bring a spray of arbutus,
From underneath the snow and sleet,
The angels fashioned like a star,
And drop at your anointed feet.
TO THE STANDISH GUARDS
OF THE OLD COLONY.
New England’s old three-cornered hat still guards this ancient town,
The men who followed Lafayette are marching up and down.
The spirit born at Lexington, and all the men are here,
With fife and drum, and here they come, and each a brigadier!
The heirs of Freedom ne’er broke ranks, or failed to face the brunt,
In every fight for righteousness our men are at the front;
In every battle fought for peace the past and future meet,
And grenadiers and cavaliers still flank each home and street.
The covenants our fathers made forever move in rhyme,
They’ve never found the Port of Rest; the iron tongues of Time
Are bugling men to saddle, and comrades, side by side,
From Gettysburg to Flanders join in a dusty ride!
And here they come! and there they come! The farmer and the knight,
And dead men, shouting—“load and fire!” from parapets of light.
And every one a mother’s son, the khaki, and the gold,
Old Glory prancing on ahead, a shout in every fold!
In every star a mother’s prayer, in every stripe is found
A country’s solace for the slain to wrap him, ’round and ’round.
March on, and let your scabbards swing, your swords shall never rust;
Ride! Ride! ye belted horsemen! the sacrificial trust
Of bygone days is haloed by bayonet and scroll,
Where millions read a simple creed that binds a nation’s soul.
High on the walls of Heaven it crowns a lifting sky;
Hats off! ye peoples of the earth, America goes by!
Written on the return of the Plymouth Boys from the World War.