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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SESQUICENTENNIAL ODE; FOR JULY 24, 1926 by CHARLES WHARTON STORK

First Line: WHERE IS YOUR PROMISE
Last Line: IN GLORY ABOVE!
Subject(s): FLAGS; GROWTH; UNITED STATES; AMERICA;
I

Where is your promise,
Flag of our country?
Where is the vision
You fanned to a glow?
Drab as the faded
Crimson of sunset?
Foul as the mud-soiled
Whiteness of snow?
What of your stars,
Almost quadrupled?
Are they the beacons
Of changeless truth,
Or is their lustre
Far off, unmeaning.
Cold as the fact-slain
Fancies of youth?

II

One hundred years and fifty has the world
Beheld our nation tested without cease
Alike in the insidious calms of peace
As in the gales of war. The challenge hurled
Against the tyranny of the titled few
Stings Europe still. "This mob, this chartless crew
Without a captain -- whither will it steer?"
Echoes the classic sneer.

Yet in the shock when older nations reel
And founder we have weathered safely through.
With full devotion, unconstrained, our crew
Keeps each his place from topmast down to keel.
Our chart records the will of God in man
Fulfilled increasingly with every span
Of history, and our compass is the hope
That points a wider scope.

What if the doubter think our land in thrall
To Mammon? Has he marked that up to now
There have been roads to build and fields to plow?
We have as yet but squared the pedestal
On which to rear the living monument
Where simpler, kindlier beauty shall be blent
With the bold ecstasy of former time
In a new birth sublime.

III

Comrade Americans,
You are the vision,
You are the promise,
Daughter and son.
Yours the wise industry
Patterned by Franklin,
Yours the firm ardor
Of Washington.

Weave then the banner
Into your being;
Weave its white purity,
Weave its red love;
Weave the unwavering
Truth of the star-field
Gleaming united
In glory above!



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