Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO THE AMERICAN POETS OF TO-DAY, by ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO THE AMERICAN POETS OF TO-DAY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Comrades mine of muse and land
Last Line: To find the measure of the wrong.
Subject(s): Poetry & Poets


COMRADES mine of Muse and Land,
When the wanton war-drum sounded
And the world fell back astounded
At a fate so lightly planned,
Heralds of the Right in song,
Were you silent at the wrong?

Comrades mine of Land and Muse,
When the mailed and haughty giant
Crushed the weak but uncompliant,
Did you falter which to choose?
Did the cult of Art for Art
Halt the tempest of your heart?

No, you left your joy untold,
Left Love's pondered rhyme impending,
Left unpraised the summer's blending
Into roadside blue and gold.
What were Nature, Love and Song
In the presence of such wrong?

At each Teuton perfidy
Trembled your swift lines with scorning.
Lowell's vision, Webster's warning
Made you seers of Liberty:
Others doubted: you divined
The awful cross of humankind.

When the dragon, War, is dead,
Though the haunting slain be counted
Like the stars, and grief hath mounted
Higher than the Jungfrau's head,
History shall search your song
To find the measure of the wrong.





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