Classic and Contemporary Poetry
INVITATION, by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN Poet's Biography First Line: Friends to freedom! Is't not time Last Line: Cross with me the atlantic's waves! Subject(s): Freedom | ||||||||
Friends to Freedom! is't not time That your course were shaped at length? Wherefore stand ye loitering here? Seek some healthier, holier clime, Where your souls may grow in strength, And whence Love hath exiled Fear! Europe-Southern, Saxon, Celt- Sits alone, in tattered robe, In our days she burns with none Of the lightning-life she felt, When Rome shook the troubled globe, Twenty centuries agone. Deutschland sleeps: her star hath waned, France, the Thundress whilome, now Singeth small, with bated breath; Spain is bleeding, Poland chained; Italy can but groan and vow; England lieth sick to death. Cross with me the Atlantic's foam, And your genuine goal is won. Purely Freedom's breezes blow, Merrily Freedom's children roam By the d-dal Amazon, And the glorious Ohio! Thither take not gems and gold, Nought from Europe's robber-hoards Must profane the Western Zones. Thither take ye spirits bold, Thither take ye ploughs and swords, And your father's buried bones! Come!-if Liberty's true fires Burn within your bosoms, come! If ye would that in your graves Your free sons would bless their sires Make the Far Green West your home, Cross with me the Atlantic's waves! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LOVE THE WILD SWAN by ROBINSON JEFFERS AFTER TENNYSON by AMBROSE BIERCE QUARTET IN F MAJOR by WILLIAM MEREDITH CROSS THAT LINE by NAOMI SHIHAB NYE EMANCIPATION by ELIZABETH ALEXANDER A VISION OF CONNAUGHT IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN |
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