Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NEWARK AND PHILIP KEARNY, by CLINTON SCOLLARD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NEWARK AND PHILIP KEARNY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: City that sits where calm passaic's tide
Last Line: "give us another fearless ""fighting phil!"
Subject(s): Kearny, Philip (1814-1862); Newark, New Jersey


City that sits where calm Passaic's tide
Curves, in a shining sickle, toward the sea,
Wearing upon thy radiant brow the pride
Of fifty lustrums, from thy seaward door
Outlooking with unclouded eyes and wide
Upon the future and on destiny,
Many thy heroes from years gone before! --
Many thy heroes of unswerving will,
But none so valiant, score on dauntless score,
As Philip Kearny, our brave "fighting Phil!"

Although to mother him it was not thine,
Yet fond adoption links him to thy name;
Born of a virile and a valorous line,
A line wherein were blended Gael and Gaul,
Whose sons, like stars, in living luster shine
Upon the illimitable scroll of fame,
His was the luster fairest of them all!
Within his veins whatever blood there ran,
By birth, by love, till his untimely fall,
From first to last he was American.

I viewed in faithful bronze but yesterday
His figure upon thy memorial square,
Girdled about with greenery of the May,
Martial, and in his gaze the scorn of fear;
A later Bayard, eager for the fray,
A rapt, adventurous, chivalrous air
Mantling him, as authority the seer.
Inspiring words seemed poised upon his lip, --
The spirit of a paladin without peer;
Happy the city with such guardianship!

And going back through all his checkered days,
I followed him, as one would trace the flight
Of some swift planet journeying through the ways
Ethereal, by impetuous impulse sped;
I saw him 'mid the hot and shimmering maze
Of desert sands Algerian face the might
Of banded tribes by frenzied Islam led, --
The fierce, fanatical, free-booting hordes, --
And while the blazing sun burned overhead,
I marked his blade amid the flashing swords.

I heard his voice ring as the clarion rings
Through Cherubusco's lanes of battle fire,
A spot whereto his quenchless ardor clings
As Roland's clings to Roncesvalles yet;
In Italy I traced the tireless wings
Of his endeavor, and when civil ire
Stirred his own land, and her dear sod was wet
With kindred blood, I watched him stand her shield
And bulwark till, -- oh, pitiful regret! --
The night and death closed o'er Chantilly's field.

City that sits by calm Passaic's side,
Give us another Kearny at our need
To spur our faltering, and to stem the tide
Of sloth and dalliance, lest we lose the old
Reverent reliance! -- down the lines to ride
With "forward! forward!" nor the foeman heed!
Should the hour come (and what may be foretold,
With clouds of menace and with threats of ill?)
Give us another leader staunch and bold,
Give us another fearless "fighting Phil!"





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