Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A CALL TO ARMS, by MARY RAYMOND SHIPMAN ANDREWS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A CALL TO ARMS, by                    
First Line: It is I, america, calling!
Last Line: Arm, arm, americans! And remember, remember, the tuscania!
Subject(s): Army - United States; Patriotism; World War I; First World War


IT is I, America, calling!
Above the sound of rivers falling,
Above the whir of the wheels and the chime of bells in the steeple
-- Wheels, rolling gold into the palms of the people --
Bells ringing silverly clear and slow
To church-going, leisurely steps on pavements below.
Above all familiar sounds of the life of a nation
I shout to you a name.
And the flame of that name is sped
Like fire into hearts where blood runs red --
The hearts of the land burn hot to the land's salvation
As I call across the long miles, as I, America, call to my nation
Tuscania! Tuscania!
Americans, remember the Tuscania!

Shall we not remember how they died
In their young courage and loyalty and pride,
Our boys -- bright-eyed, clean lads of America's breed,
Hearts of gold, limbs of steel, flower of the nation indeed?
How they tossed their years to be
Into icy waters of a winter sea
That we whom they loved -- that the world which they loved
should be free?
Ready, ungrudging, they died, each one thinking, likely, as
the moment was come
Of the dear, starry flag, worth dying for, and then of dear
faces at home;
Going down in good order, with a song on their lips of the
land of the free and the brave
Till each young, deep voice stopped -- under the rush of a wave.
Was it like that? And shall their memory ever grow pale?
Not ever, till the stars in the flag of America fail.
It is I, America, who swear it, calling
Over the sound of that deep ocean's falling,
Tuscania! Tuscania!
Arm, arm, Americans! Remember the Tuscania!

Very peacefully they are sleeping
In friendly earth, unmindful of a nation's weeping,
And the kindly, strange folk that honored the long, full
graves, we know;
And the mothers know that their boys are safe, now, from
the hurts of a savage foe;
It is for us who are left to make sure and plain
That these dead, our precious dead, shall not have died in vain;
So that I, America, young and strong and not afraid,
I set my face across that sea which swallowed the bodies of
the sons I made,
I set my eyes on the still faces of boys washed up on a distant shore
And I call with a shout to my own to end this horror forevermore!
In the boys' names I call a name,
And the nation leaps to fire in its flame
And my sons and my daughters crowd, eager to end the shame --
It is I, America, calling,
Hoarse with the roar of that ocean falling,
Tuscania! Tuscania!
Arm, arm, Americans! And remember, remember, the Tuscania!





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