X
They fought, the Union from State's Rights to free;
At Vicksburg, Wagner, and Port Hudson lent
Their aid; their deeds at Pillow and Olustee
Rose surge on surge like ocean billows rent!
The praises of the gallant Ninth and Tenth
Will ever rise and soft float to the sky—
They bagged Old Bull in Rocky Mountain tent;
Then stormed the Spanish block-housed Hills on high,
And bade the tyrant Spaniard's heaving heart to die!
XI
"High time, my Haitian islet must be free!"
Great Touissant thus his declaration tacks;
Then drives proud Frenchmen into the yawning sea—
"The bravest whites, by bravest of the blacks."
Brave Maceo pursues the Spanish packs,
And Aguinaldo, in the mountain wilds,
Pours shot and shell into the tyrants' backs—
They save her throne and Freedom on them smiles,
True heroes, and the Fathers of their sunlit Isles!
XII
Thy sons have triumphed in the Halls of State;
Hamilton and Douglas were the first to gain,
With lightning eye and tongue of thunder great,
The civic lead of thy illustrious train.
Next Bruce and Revels, senatorial twain;
John Lynch and Small emit a brilliant light,
And Langston, Pinchback, Cheatham all remain;
With Dancy, Vernon, Anderson, and White,
Liang Williams, Lyons, Terrell stand for "Civic Right."
XIII
In science's realm with Banneker we start,
Then read on Medicae's emblazoned wall:
"Dan Williams here first stitched the human heart!"
Close by the names of Curtis, Boyd, and Hall.
But others list'd and heard Invention's call,
In all its sweetness of the days of yore,
And Woods, the greatest foreman of them all,
Shouts on his voyage with Black and Baltimore:
"We come! we come! good Dame, thy region to explore!"
XIV
"I, too," said 'Monia Lewis, "can make a man!"
Then mould' his form with most artistic ease—
But all aeolian strains Blind Tom could scan,
And play as softly as the South Sea breeze
Upon his major and his minor keys!
Good Douglas gently wakes the violin's song,
And White leads home the zephyrs from the seas;
While Coleridge-Taylor with an art more strong
Full finds the key-note of Dame Nature's vesper song!