Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LEXINGTON, by PERCY MACKAYE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LEXINGTON, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Where is the little town of lexington?
Last Line: "let lexington be still our revolution-cry!"
Alternate Author Name(s): Mackaye, Percy Wallace
Subject(s): American Revolution; Freedom; Lexington, Battle Of (1775); Revolutions; Liberty; Concord, Battle Of


"WHERE is the little town of Lexington?
Oh, I have lost my way!" —
But all the brawling people hurried on:
Why should they stay
To watch a tattered boy, with wistful face,
Dazed by the roaring strangeness of the place? —
In wondering scorn
Turning, he tapped the powder from his powder-horn.

"Where is my blood-bright hearth of Lexington?" —
Strangely the kindling cry
Startled the crowded street; yet everyone
Still scrambled by
Into the shops and markets; till at last
Went by a pensive scholar. As he passed,
Sudden, to whet
Of steel, he heard a flint-lock flash: their faces met.

"What like, then, is your little Lexington?"
"Oh, sir, it is my home,
Which I have lost." — The scholar's sharp eyes shone.
"Come with me! Come,
And I will show you, old and hallowed, all
Its maps and marks and shafts memorial." —
Out of the roar
They went, into green silence where old elm trees soar.

"Here is your little town of Lexington:
Let fall your eyes
And read the old inscription on this stone:
`Beneath this lies
The first who fell in our dear country's fight
For revolution and the freeman's right."'
The boy's eyes fell,
But shining swiftly rose: "Yes, I remember well!

"Yet there lies not my lost home Lexington:
For none who fall
At Lexington is buried under stone;
And eyes of all
Who fight at Lexington look up at God
Not down upon His servants under sod
Whose souls are sped;
They lie who say in Lexington free men are dead."

"My son, I said not so of Lexington.
`There lie the bones,'
I said, `of great men, and their souls are gone.'
God sends but once
His lightning-flash to strike the sacred spot.
Our great sires are departed." — "They are not!
I am alive.
I fought at Lexington; you see, I still survive!

"And still I live to fight at Lexington.
I am come far
From Russian steppes and Balkan valleys, wan
With ghostly war,
Where still the holy watchword in the fight
Was Revolution and the freeman's right! —
Now I am come

Back with that battle-cry to help my own dear home.
"Here, here it lies — my lost home Lexington!
Not there in dust,
But here in the great highway of the sun,
Where still the lust
Of arrogant power flaunts its regiments,
And lurking hosts of tyranny pitch their tents,
And still the yoke
Of heavy-laden labor weighs on simple folk.

"Our country cries for living Lexington!
From mine and slum
And hearths where man's rebellion still burns on,
Rolls the deep drum:
Ah, not to elegize but emulate
Is homage worthy of the heroic great,
Whose memoried spot
Serves but to quicken fire from ashes long forgot.

"Here, then, O little town of Lexington,
Burnish anew
Our muskets for the battle long begun
For freedom! — You,
O you, my comrades, called from all world-clans,
Here, by the deeds of dear Americans
That cannot die,
Let Lexington be still our revolution-cry!"





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