Classic and Contemporary Poetry
FALLEN, by JOHN LAWSON STODDARD Poet's Biography First Line: My country! By our fathers reared Last Line: Retrace the path that ends in shame! Subject(s): Heroism; Nations; Past; Tyranny & Tyrants; Heroes; Heroines | ||||||||
My country! by our fathers reared As champion of the world's opprest; Whose moral force the tyrant feared; Whose flag all struggling freemen cheered; In clutching at an empire's crest Thou too art fallen like the rest. Not in thy numbers, wealth or might, Proud mistress of a continent! For rival nations, at the sight Of thy resources, view with fright Thy progress without precedent; Not there is seen thy swift descent. Reread the story of thy birth! Recall the years in conflict spent To prove to a despairing earth That every Government of worth Is really based on free consent; Then view with shame thy present bent! Thou hadst a place unique, sublime; In many a land beyond the sea The victims of despotic crime In thee, the latest born of Time, Beheld a land from tyrants free, The sacred Ark of Liberty. But now the Old World's lust for lands Infects thee too; the dread disease Hath left its plague-spots on thy hands; Thy monster area still expands; For, blind to history's Nemesis, Thou too wouldst alien races seize. Condemning with profound disdain All other nations' heartless greed, How couldst thou buy from humbled Spain A people struggling to attain A freedom suited to their need? Why stultify thy boasted creed? Thine aid to them thou mightst have given, As France her aid once gave to thee; With them thy sons might well have striven, And their blood-rusted fetters riven; But why, in Heaven's name, should we Shoot men aspiring to be free? I tread the fields where thousands sleep, -- The blood-soaked fields that freed the slave; What precious memories still they keep For hearts that mourn and eyes that weep! Yet for the lives those heroes gave What have we that they died to save? A Union? Yes; outstretched in might From snow to palm, from sea to sea; But pledged to use its strength aright, And evermore to keep alight The torch of human liberty: Is this the Union that we see? Where history's Martyr dared to break The power that held a race in chains, I see the ghastly lynching-stake, Where brutal mobs their vengeance take, And, since no law their course restrains, Gloat o'er their writhing victim's pains. Race hatred, -- born of groundless fears And narrow prejudice of caste --, Now greets the cultured black with sneers And, barring him from high careers, Breaks, like a mad iconoclast, The nation's idols of the past. No more can we with steadfast eyes Protest, when tortured races moan With hands uplifted toward the skies; Their tyrants answer with surprise And new-born insolence of tone, -- "These are our lynchings; cure your own!" Yet hope remains! A path retraced Is nobler than persistent wrong; A fault confessed is half effaced; That land alone can be disgraced Which is not just, however strong, Toward those to whom its "spoils" belong. My country! Would to God that praise Might leave my lips, instead of blame! So near the parting of the ways, Subjected to the eager gaze Of millions, jealous of thy fame, Retrace the path that ends in shame! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CONFESSION OF ST. JIM-RALPH by DENIS JOHNSON NOTES FOR AN ELEGY by WILLIAM MEREDITH THE EROTICS OF HISTORY by EAVAN BOLAND A SONG FOR HEROES by EDWIN MARKHAM AFTER THE BROKEN ARM by RON PADGETT PRELUDE; FOR GEOFFREY GORER by EDITH SITWELL EXAMINATION OF THE HERO IN A TIME OF WAR by WALLACE STEVENS A MAY MONODY by JOHN LAWSON STODDARD |
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