Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, OLD GLORY, by EMMA FRANCES DAWSON


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

OLD GLORY, by                    
First Line: Enchanted web! A picture in the air
Last Line: "our hallowed, eloquent, beloved ""old glory""!"
Subject(s): Flags - United States; United States - History; American Flag


ENCHANTED web! A picture in the air,
Drifted to us from out the distance blue
From shadowy ancestors, through whose brave care
We live in magic of a dream come true—
With Covenanters' blue, as if were glassed
In dewy flower-heart the stars that passed.
O blood-veined blossom that can never blight!
The Declaration, like a sacred rite,
Is in each star and stripe declamatory,
The Constitution thou shalt long recite,
Our hallowed, eloquent, beloved "Old Glory"!

O symphony in red, white, blue!—fanfare
Of trumpet, roll of drum, forever new
Reverberations of the Bell, that bear
Its tones of liberty the wide world through!
In battle dreaded like a cyclone blast,
Symbol of land and people unsurpassed,
Thy brilliant day shall never have a night.
On foreign shore no pomp so grand a sight,
No face so friendly, naught consolatory
Like glimpse of lofty spar with thee bedight,
Our hallowed, eloquent, beloved "Old Glory"!

Thou art the one Flag, an embodied prayer,
One, highest and most perfect to review;
Without one, nothing; it is lineal, square,
Has properties of all the numbers, too,
Cube, solid, square root, root of root; best classed
It for His Essence the Creator cast,
For purity are thy six stripes of white,
This number circular and endless quite,
Six times, well knows the scholar wan and hoary
His compass spanning circle can alight,
Our hallowed, eloquent, beloved "Old Glory"!

Boldly the seven lines of scarlet flare,
As when o'er old centurion it blew
(Red is the trumpet's tone, it means to dare!)
God favored seven when creation grew;
The seven planets; seven hues contrast;
The seven metals; seven days, not last
The seven tones of marvellous delight
That lend the listening soul their wings for flight;
But why complete the happy category
That gives the thirteen stripes their charm and might?
Our hallowed, eloquent, beloved "Old Glory"!

In thy dear colors, honored everywhere,
The great and mystic ternion we view;
Faith, Hope, and Charity are numbered there
And the three nails the Crucifixion knew.
Three are offended when one has trespassed,
God, and one's neighbor and one's self aghast;
Christ's deity and soul and manhood's height;
Father, and Son and Ghost may here unite,
With texts like these divinely monitory,
What wonder that thou conquerest in the fight,
Our hallowed, eloquent, beloved "Old Glory"!

Envoy

O blessed Flag! sign of our precious Past,
Triumphant Present and our Future vast,
Beyond starred blue and bars of sunset bright,
Lead us to higher realm of Equal Right!
Float on in ever lovely allegory,
Kin to the eagle, and the wind, and light,
Our hallowed, eloquent, beloved "Old Glory"!





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