He plucked the Rose in sadness—
And the red Rose seeing, knew:
And it gave its sweetest incense,
And its petals shone with dew.
He plucked the Rose in gladness—
Nor sorrow’s least alloy—
And the Rose it shook its leaves and laughed
In its tumultuous joy.
By all the devious ways he came—
By every mood and whim;
And as he stooped to gather—
The Rose gave back to him.
PATRIOTISM
Ends of the riven Nation
I’ve drawn near and near,
Duty and love and honor
I’ve garnered year by year;
Oh fair they tell o’ the Lasting Peace,
And the Final Brotherhood,
But I call my sons to the signal guns,
And I know that the call is good.
Mongol and Teuton and Slav and Czech—
Saxon and Celt and Gaul—
Out of the mire at my desire
They leapt to the battle-call,
The Mean and the Low and the Goodly—
Murderer, saint and thief—
From city and plow with lofty brow
They rode to My Belief.
The Mean and the Low and the Goodly
O’er the fields of carnage swept,
And for those that returned, the laurel crown—
And for those that stayed—they wept.
And the Mother showed her stripling
The place where the foeman ran,
And he pledged to the skies with yearning eyes—
And the pledge was the pledge of a man.
Over the field of battle
The well aimed arrows flew,
Over a sea of wreckage
The bending galleons blew;
And where the arrow found him,
Or the round-shot rent atwain,
He fell—but turned in the falling
To bless his Land again.
Ends of the riven Nation
I’ve drawn, near and near,
Duty and love and honor
I’ve garnered year by year;
Oh fair they tell o’ the Lasting Peace,
And the Final Brotherhood,
But I call my sons to the signal guns—
And I know that the call is good.