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Home  »  An American Anthology, 1787–1900  »  751 Europa

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Stephen HenryThayer

751 Europa

GREAT Sovereign of the earth and sea,

Whose sceptre shall forever be

The reign supreme of Liberty,

Draw thou the veil that dims our sight, light thou our eyes,

That we may see!

Beyond the waters, east and west,

Six giant legions ominous rest,

Equipped and armed from sole to crest;

The burdened nations groan and reel and listen for

The dread behest.

The Ottoman by the Ægean tide

Is bonded; there the navies ride

And train their armaments to bide

The menace from the eagle’s north, or who will dare

The kings allied.

The cringing Sultan can but wait

The will of other crowns; his fate

Is graven in the hearts that hate

And tremble at his wasting power—the curse of men—

So weak, so great.

His doom is written in the skies;

His Orient Empire palsied lies,

And still and still he crucifies

The last bare hope that yet might save, and mocks his knell,

And still defies.

I hear the Empires muttering now,—

The northern Cæsar keeps his vow,

And waits and wills both where and how

His sheathless sword shall smite at last; he waits and knits

His iron brow.

I see the Austrians mustering where

The Adriatic’s waters glare,

Or by the Danube; and they swear

Eternal vigilance against the Cossack hordes

So sleepless there.

The crafty Chancellor, outworn,

Who guards the German state, in scorn

Watches the French frontier,—his thorn;

Looks north to the Crimean gates, and eastward to

The Golden Horn.

Europa waits the signal, swells

Imperial armies, still compels,

From Britain to the Dardanelles,

Fresh millions to her warrior camps, and millions more,

For ships and shells.

Till on her mighty, martial field

The greatest products she can yield

Are armëd men and sword and shield:

Whole nations bent and strung for what? O Lord, thy thought

Is still concealed!

Great Sovereign of the earth and sea,

Whose sceptre shall forever be

The reign supreme of Liberty,

Draw thou the veil that dims our sight, light thou our eyes,

That we may see!
CHARMIAN, 16 Feb., 1888