Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CUBA LIBRE by PERCY STICKNEY GRANT

First Line: AMERICA, HAST THOU FORGOT THY BIRTH
Last Line: AND WITH THEIR SICKLES HEW THEIR HATED FOES.
Subject(s): CUBA; SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR (1898);
America, hast thou forgot thy birth,
Thy long reluctant fight for liberty,
The starved and ragged ranks that wrenched thee free,
Cheered by one nation prescient of thy worth?
Thine enemy, the captain state on earth,
Thy motherland, hater of tyranny,
Insanely ruled, held fast her child in fee
For profit, -- paid at last by death and dearth.
Free land, speak thou to her crouched by thy coasts
Who would like thee be free. Yes, break the chain
A parent's proud decrepitudes impose.
Where women war than smile on Spanish hosts;
Where men despair and leave the sweetening cane,
And with their sickles hew their hated foes.



Home: PoetryExplorer.net