Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE UNION OF HEARTS; AN ODE, by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE UNION OF HEARTS; AN ODE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The spaniard has fallen! Has fallen!
Last Line: Till all the future of mankind is peace!
Subject(s): Navy - Great Britain; English Navy


THE Spaniard has fallen! has fallen! Give thanks and rejoice,
Great West, with a consonant voice;
The Spaniard has fallen, the blight of the ages has fled,
And for ever the rule of the priest and the monk lies dead
Upon the Philippine and Cuban shore.
By the Pacific and the Carib sea
The savage Spanish soldier comes no more,
The isles once more are free,
No more the down-trod peoples cry in vain,
In long-unheeded pain;
They are free, they are free once more, after rebellious years
Of misery and tears.
Famine, Oppression, Torture, Murder, long
Stalked through the land, and all the hosts of Wrong,
But now the black night spent, the reign of Evil done,
High in the unwonted skies a miracle appears,
And from the West ascends the fair unhoped-for Sun.

Thrice happy are the eyes which mark
Amid the unbroken dark,
A feeble, struggling ray,
The first precursor of approaching day;
We who live now, midst crash of shot and shell,
And wreck, and blood, and fire as fierce as hell,
Discern a wonder to renew the Earth,
New-mailed to-day a Titan comes to birth.
Born late in Time, the Empire of the Free,
Lording the West, co-heiress of the Sea,
By whose strong arm and stronger thought and word
Shall all mankind be stirred;
A might which joined with England's shall increase
The happier doom of Man, the victories of Peace.

Strong were our brave forefathers bold,
Who fought the stubborn Don before,
On many a perilous sea and tropic shore,
In those adventurous days of old;
Who chased his towering galleons one by one
From sea to storm-tossed sea, from shoal to rock,
Till that great tempest blew fierce with resistless shock,
And God accomplished what their hands began.
Laud we the dauntless sailors, whose rude might
Saved Europe and the world from the long curse
Of the priest's crooked ways, and worse,
The Ignorance he loves as bats the night.
Not yet a century has fled since he,
Champion of every European sea,
Fought in his little ship of English oak
With those proud banded fleets, and broke
Not Spain alone, but spurned the tyrant's yoke
Which menaced all the trembling world; and kept
Inviolate our motherland, who bore
The mighty empire we acclaim to-day --
Our daughter who shall keep
Dominion o'er the deep
When we and all our power have passed away.
Laud we our watchful sires who never slept,
But kept alive, undimmed, by land and sea
A beacon fire, the Freeman's sovereignty.

Laud them, but never let our thought forget
The fresh wounds bleeding yet;
The brave knights-errant who by land and sea,
'Mid pestilence and misery,
'Neath blinding suns, and glare, hunger and thirst,
Sought only who should face the foeman first,
Mown down by shot and shell, yet climbing still
Against those grinning casemates on the hill;
For hours untended 'neath a tropic sky,
Left hopeless in the pitiless glare to die.
Young lives for whom till then, Life's primrose way
Lay smiling uneventful day by day.
Sons worthy of their sires, who willing gave
Wealth, health, love, life itself to free the slave,
But those for home and country fought, while they
For alien sufferings flung their lives away.

And praise those strong new Paladins of to-day
Who keep alive our glorious story still,
The dauntless seamen who with patient skill
Waiting on daring, drove the hapless prey
To wreck and ruin, while the unerring stroke
Of giant bolts the steel-mailed cruisers broke,
Scatheless themselves, and yet whose pitiful hand
Succoured the vanquished. Worthy sons are they
Of Drake or Nelson, or that gallant band
Those later heroes of their own loved land,
Who bore for all to mark, the chivalry
And daring of the Sea.

Nor shall a generous people yet
Their eulogy forget
Who fought a hopeless fight and fought it well;
The humble lives which in the blazing hold
Half-naked, bleeding, dreadful to behold,
Braved the dread doom of fire,
Who lately from the leaguered harbour went
With lace and cross and warlike ornament
To death as to a feast. Stout hearts and undismayed!
Not to the free alone, but to the slave
'Tis given to be brave.

Nor lastly shall our souls forget
The mighty silent sister, whose strong fleets
Stud each discovered sea,
Whose warm heart after age-long discords beats
Oh, sister land, in harmony with thee!
But for her watchful squadrons who can tell
What stress of sordid jealousies befell,
What hindering force of harm,
The glorious work of thy avenging arm?
'Twas England's might secured thy work to thee!
Kinsman to kin allied, freeman to free,
Together oh, great sisters, ever keep,
Together rule the highway of the Deep,
Together sound the knell of tyranny,
Swear a great oath that Thought and Man are free!
Together raise a beacon from afar,
The Light of Equity too strong for War,
Together let your tranquil realms increase,
Till all the future of mankind is Peace!





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