Heroic figures, familiar to us from childhood, appear in these metrical versions of episodes in our national history. Here is the red man whose hour, alas! was struck when first the pale-face looked upon his happy hunting-grounds; here are Pocahontas and her Captain; the Pilgrim Fathers; Washington, the soldier-statesman; the embattled farmers who fired at Concord the shot heard round the world; the Continentals in their ragged regimentals, and Old Ironsides with its memories of 1812. Then, when "westward the Star of Empire takes its way," come the Argonauts of '49, crossing the plains in their white-sailed prairie schooners in search, like Jason, of the Golden Fleece.
The years move on, and Abraham Lincoln, the Great Commoner, dear benefactor of the race, appears, and, kneeling at his feet, the dusky slave whose bonds he loosened. Gallant Phil Sheridan and Barbara Frietchie are here too; indeed, you will find that the number of poems inspired by the Civil War is very great; but the patriot host, above, below, knows now no North nor South; and Lincoln's "dear majestic ghost" looks down upon, as Old Glory floats over, a united commonwealth.
XI
NEW WORLD AND OLD GLORY
Dear Land of All My Love[18]
Long as thine art shall love true love,
Long as thy science truth shall know,
Long as thine eagle harms no dove,
Long as thy law by law shall grow,
Long as thy God is God above,
Thy brother every man below,
So long, dear land of all my love,
Thy name shall shine, thy fame shall glow.
Sidney Lanier.
From "The Centennial Ode" (1876).