THE AMERICAN EAGLE
——————
Lofty is his habitation, peerless dweller of the skies—
Unafraid of all creation, where his rock-ribbed turrets rise;
There's a confidence unbounded hedging 'round his solitude
That should warn marauding mongrels with designs upon his brood!
O, the outlook from his aerie is a grand one, it is true—
Matchless beauty in the vistas which unfold before his view;
Might and right and wealth and glory that shall never know decline
Are his attributes to conquer ruthless robbers of the Rhine!
You invaded his dominions, sowing discord on the way;
Your besotted agents plotted to o'erthrow his mighty sway:
Using all the wiles of Willie on pacifist Bob and Pat,
Till some eaglets oversilly scarcely knew where they were at.
He was patient with your pirates since you first began to raid
And usurp his habitation to pursue your hell-born trade;
He was patient with your plotting till you piled the final straws
Which broke down his toleration—now, ye devils, mind his claws!
He looked on in consternation, scarce believing what he saw.
When you sank his ships in anger in defiance of all law:
Killing women and their children with a fiendishness unknown
Since the first bloodthirsty monster was misplaced upon a throne.
Now the eagle's wrath is burning, he is eager for the fray,
And the robbers who aroused him long will rue the bitter day
When he sweeps down from his aerie in the fury of his fire—
Sudden death will clutch the vitals of the victims of his ire!
Yea, the eagle's wings are spreading, nobly spreading to the breeze,
And their awful sweep shall bear him over land and over seas:
Men and money move in millions where those mighty pinions rest,
And God help misguided minions who have monkeyed with his nest!
Brave, determined northern neighbor, hold the "hills" so dearly won—
Hold the hills until the Eagle strikes with you to crush the Hun!
Courage! Allies, friends of freedom, in this war we're all akin—
Carry on! Old Glory's with you on the red road to Berlin!
IN MEMORY
of
DONALD McLEOD
————————
Of North Hill, Lingwick, Who Died of Smallpox, at Flagstaff, Arizona, on the 2nd day of March, 1882.
————————
The sun hath set and leaves the day, as when the soul hath left its clay,
The pale soft tints of twilight spread from east to west.
The evening breeze that fans my cheek with mellow cadence seems to speak,
Then sighing onward through the dusk it sinks to rest.
On nights like this my fancy strays, to loved ones lost in other days;
Whom gold had tempted to the sunset land afar;
Brave boys whose hopes of future wealth were blasted by thy power O Death,
Whose mandates wage on old and young a constant war.
Among the lads so kind and true, who sought the land of golden hue,
To meet amid its glittering hopes an early doom,
Was Lingwick's strongest, lealest man, the joy and pride of all his clan,
As brave a youth as ever graced a Compton home.
Dear comrade of my younger days, my muse is weak to sing thy praise,
But love is strong howe'er so feeble be my strain;
And though you're sleeping cold and still, on Flagstaff's distant pine-clad hill,
Fond memory often flits to thee across the plain.
I loved e'er childhood's days were passed: I'll love you on until the last;
E'en when the clouds of death approach I'll think of thee;
Oh, bitter fate! Oh, woeful hour! that cut thee down in manhood's power;
Thrice bitter if death's chains could bind eternally.
But blessed promise, hopeful friend, that tells us death is not the end,
That brighter prospects loom for all beyond the wave.
Oh, sing aloud the glad refrain, that friend with friend will meet again!
For love like this can ne'er be conquered by the grave.
What though the red men roam at will, from arid plain to cooler hill,
Regardless of the mounds that lie amid the groves:
What though our children find their graves with ghosts of long departed braves,
The spot is one the God of nature dearly loves.
In Arizona's distant land, where cyclones drift the heated sand,
And where the tall, majestic pine tree branches wave;
Where gaunt coyotes prowl for prey, through storm and calm, by night and day,
There in their midst there lies a lone, neglected grave.
Were eloquence immortal mine I'd sing of scenes the most sublime,
Of any nature ever lavished here below.
God's majesty seems here unfurled as elsewhere not in all the world,—
An earthly paradise o'erspread by heaven's glow.
How fitting that thy sun went down, so near the spot that wears earth's crown,—
The Colorado Canyon country, weird and dim;
No grander land beneath the skies in which to die, in which to rise;
And nature's God will care for all who sleep in Him.
What though, alas, fond earthly hopes are buried in yon western slopes,
And gentle mothers grieve for loved ones lying there:
Though maidens sigh with sad unrest, for lovers true who died out west;
The bitter heartache soon will cease and all be fair.
But Donald's manly voice still rings within our ears, and memory clings
To all the charms that marked his life while still below:
And often now our fancy's flight doth wing its journey to that night,
That marks his lonely death amid the mountain snow.
The prairie wolves of stealthy tread already seemed to scent the dead;
Their fitful howls were borne upon the midnight air;
The western world was wrapped in gloom, from sandy waste to heaven's dome,
When Donald closed his weary eyes and passed from care.
The air within the mountain camp was uncongenial, cold and damp:
And springtide gales were moaning dismally outside:
No loving hand was there to press his fevered brow with fond caress,
No gentle voice to whisper comfort when he died.
Dear Balloch Ban, thou'rt now at rest; thy sun went down far in the West.
Alas! no more to rise, until the Judgment Day;
No truer heart e'er ceased to beat, no braver soul O Death did greet,
Thy awful presence since the earth hath owned thy sway.
And now he sleeps beneath the sod, where grand old mountain pine trees nod
Their lofty plumes beneath the far-off, distant dome!
Oh, stranger, should you linger near, drop on this lonely grave a tear,
In memory of the boy that sleeps so far from home.