Ralph Waldo Emerson, comp. (1803–1882). Parnassus: An Anthology of Poetry. 1880.
The FlagJulia Ward Howe (18191910)
T
Than the blood that thrills in my bosom its earnest of liberty:
And dear are the stars it harbors in its sunny field of blue
As the hope of a further heaven that lights all our dim lives through.
Looking out, through its burnished windows like a score of welcoming eyes.
Come hither, my brothers who wander in saintliness and in sin!
Come hither, ye pilgrims of Nature! my heart doth invite you in.
And the bread that I bid you lighten I break with no sparing hand;
But pause, ere you pass to taste it, one act must accomplished be:
Salute the flag in its virtue, before ye sit down with me.
Its stripes were a holy lesson, its spangles a deathless creed;
’Twas red with the blood of freemen, and white with the fear of the foe,
And the stars that fight in their courses ’gainst tyrants its symbols know.
Thou hast many a pleasant gesture, thy mind hath its gifts and charms,
But my heart is as stern to question as mine eyes are of sorrows full:
Salute the flag in its virtue, or pass on where others rule.
The steeds of thy stall are haughty, thy lackeys cunning and bold:
I envy no jot or thy splendor, I rail at thy follies none:
Salute the flag in its virtue, or leave my poor house alone.
We welcome thee to our numbers, a flower of costliest bloom:
Let a hundred maids live widowed to furnish thy bridal bed;
But pause where the flag doth question, and bend thy triumphant head.
With the terror of death upon him; of failure is all his tale:
“They have fled while the flag waved o’er them! they have turned to the foe their back!
They are scattered, pursued, and slaughtered! the fields are all rout and wrack!”
All ye that have manhood in you, go, perish for Liberty!
But I and the babes God gave me will wait with uplifted hearts,
With the firm smile ready to kindle, and the will to perform our parts.
I’ll press in turn to my bosom each daughter and either son;
Bid them loose the flag from its bearings, and we’ll lay us down to rest
With the glory of home about us, and its freedom locked in our breast.