LINES by SAMUEL ALFRED BEADLE

@3Suggested by the Assaults made on the Negro Soldiers as they passed through the south on their
way to and from our war with Spain@1.

How I love my country you have heard,
And I would you were noble and free
In spirit and deed, as in word,
And your boasted humanity.
I love you, my country, I do, --
Here's a heart, a soul that is thine,
Pregnant with devotion for you,
And blind to your faults as to mine.

The standard of morals is high;
When fixed by my brother for me,
It goes towering up to the sky
With a dazzling purity.
For a bench he sits on a skull,
And is a judge austere and stern,
With whom my demurrers are null,
And my pleadings, though just, are spurned.

I've carried your flag to the front
Through pestilence, battles and storms;
Of the carnage of war took the blunt,
Obeyed your command, "Carry arms!"
And gone with you down to the death,
With the thorns of caste on my head;
Defended your home and your hearth,
And wept o'er the bier of your dead.

As the smoke of the fight goes by,
And the bugle calls to repose,
By my countryman's hands I die,
As well as by the hands of its foes;
Yet I love you, my country, I do,
Here's a heart, a soul that is thine,
Pregnant with devotion for you,
And blind to your faults as to mine.

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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