Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, OUR IMPERIAL POLICY', by AMOS RUSSEL WELLS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

OUR IMPERIAL POLICY', by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Never is man a man
Last Line: What god enacts and ordains
Subject(s): United States – Foreign Relations


Never is man a man.
Though he rage the world around.
Till the soul he should help, in Jehovah's plan.
He has sought like a man, and found;
And never a nation Is more than dirt.
Dirt and a burden of men.
Till it finds a people with deadly hurt.
And back to safety, and back to hope.
And back to freedom's imperial scope
It lifts the people again.

I and of my faith and love!
Though the cynic flout and sneer.
The rebuke or the praise of the Lord above
Shall alone be your boon or fear.
What need has my nation to reach and seize
Burdens of subjects and soil?
Not these though the slanderous scout, not these,
But slaves set free, and the hungry fed.
And orphans sheltered and comforted,
Be these our booty and spoil!

Not to called a Power.
That the cringing world should kneel.
Nor to sit where the masterful nations lower
In their castles of threatening steel,
But here where the tyrant has whip in air.
Yonder where dungeons are red.
On the serf at toil, the oppressed at prayer.
To place the crown of a man's desire.
And establish his throne by a household fire.
For this may our arms be sped!

Yes, and if power mean peace,
And the army move for God,
And if freedom increase as our ships increase,
And the ground where our troops have trod
Shall ring, as our armies encompass it,
With broken fetters and chains.
Then the rank of war is Jehovah's writ.
The moving text of the lord's decree
Proclaiming clear to the land, to the sea.
What God enacts and ordains.





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