Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE UNITED STATES, by JOHN KEBLE


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THE UNITED STATES, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Tyre of the farther west! Be thou too warned
Last Line: Her towers, and lone sands heap her crowned merchants' graves.
Subject(s): United States; America


TYRE of the farther west! be thou too warn'd,
Whose eagle wings thine own green world o'erspread,
Touching two oceans: wherefore hast thou scorn'd
Thy fathers' God, O proud and full of bread?
Why lies the cross unhonour'd on thy ground,
While in mid-air thy stars and arrows flaunt?
That sheaf of darts, will it not fall unbound,
Except, disrobed of thy vain earthly vaunt,
Thou bring it to be bless'd where saints and angels haunt?

The holy seed, by Heaven's peculiar grace,
Is rooted here and there in thy dark woods;
But many a rank weed round it grows apace,
And Mammon builds beside thy mighty floods,
O'ertopping nature, braving nature's God;
Oh while thou yet hast room, fair, fruitful land,
Ere war and want have stain'd thy virgin sod,
Mark thee a place on high, a glorious stand,
Whence truth her sign may make o'er forest, lake, and strand.

Eastward, this hour, perchance thou turnest thine
Listening if haply with the surging sea
Blend sounds of ruin from a land once dear ear
To thee and Heaven. O trying hour for thee!
Tyre mock'd when Salem fell; where now is Tyre?
Heaven was against her. Nations thick as waves
Burst o'er her walls, to ocean doom'd and fire;
And now the tideless water idly laves
Her towers, and lone sands heap her crowned merchants' graves.





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