Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NEWS FROM YORKTOWN, by LEWIS WORTHINGTON SMITH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NEWS FROM YORKTOWN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Past two o'clock and cornwallis is taken
Last Line: Like a cry for god's justice born!
Subject(s): American Revolution; Cornwallis, Charles (1738-1805); Yorktown Campaign (1781)


"PAST two o'clock and Cornwallis is taken."
How the voice rolled down the street
Till the silence rang and echoed
With the stir of hurrying feet!
In the hush of the Quaker city,
As the night drew on to morn,
How it startled the troubled sleepers,
Like the cry for a man-child born!

"Past two o'clock and Cornwallis is taken."
How they gathered, man and maid,
Here the child with a heart for the flint-lock,
There the trembling grandsire staid!
From the stateliest homes of the city,
From hovels that love might scorn,
How they followed that ringing summons.
Like the cry for a king's heir born!

"Past two o'clock and Cornwallis is taken."
I can see the quick lights flare,
See the glad, wild face at the window,
Half dumb in a breathless stare.
In the pause of an hour portentous,
In the gloom of a hope forlorn,
How it throbbed to the star-deep heavens,
Like the cry for a nation born!

"Past two o'clock and Cornwallis is taken."
How the message is sped and gone
To the farm and the town and the forest
Till the world was one vast dawn!
To distant and slave-sunk races,
Bowed down in their chains that morn,
How it swept on the winds of heaven,
Like a cry for God's justice born!





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