Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO MY COUNTRYMEN (A VOICE FOR PEACE), by ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO MY COUNTRYMEN (A VOICE FOR PEACE), by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Heirs of great yesterdays, be proud with me
Last Line: Be generous and win the smile of god.
Subject(s): Peace


Heirs of great yesterdays, be proud with me
Of your most envied treasure of the Past;
Not wide domain; not doubtful wealth amassed;
Not ganglia cities—rival worlds to be:—
But great souls, servitors of Liberty,
Who kept the state to star-set Honor fast,
Not for ourselves alone but that, at last,
No nation should to Baal bow the knee.

Are we content to be inheritors?
Can you not hear the pleading of the sod
That canopies our heroes? Hasten, then!
Help the sad earth unlearn the vogue of war.
Be just and earn the eternal praise of men;
Be generous and win the smile of God.





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