Bismarck or rapt Beethoven with his dreams: Ah, which was blind? Or which bespoke his race? That breed which nurtured Heine's haunting grace, And Goethe, mastering Olympic themes Of meditation, Mozart's golden gleams, And Leibnitz charting realms of time and space, Great-hearted Schiller, and that fairy brace Of brothers who first trailed the goblin streams. Bismarck for these builded an iron tomb, And clanged the door, and turned a kaiser's key; And simple folk that once danced merrily Their May-ring rites, march now in roaring gloom Toward that renascent dawn when the black womb Of buried guns gives birth to Germany. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...RHYTHM by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON CHILD AND HER STATUE by LOUIS UNTERMEYER ON A PROPOSED TRIP SOUTH by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS SONG OF THE RABBITS OUTSIDE THE TAVERN by ELIZABETH JANE COATSWORTH SAILING BEYOND SEAS (OLD STYLE) by JEAN INGELOW THE HEART OF A WOMAN by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON |