Freedom, Truth and Beauty / Sonnets

Ye know the Leopard changes not his spots.

The Prince of Peace, who spake eternal truth,

Confirmed this fact of Nature. He, with ruth

Omniscient, saw afar, the scarlet clots

Of English nature, in profidious plots

For conquest, mangling not alone brave youth

With teeth set, but old age without a tooth,

And Mothers, clutching up their bleeding tots.

Oh, yea, this beast makes his own desert, still;

And Ireland, India and Egypt show

His spots so spread, he is one ghastly glow;

Aye, as your sires saw him from Bunker Hill.

Oh, vain, gold rubs the skin and press shouts, "Lo!

It has not now one spot of threatening ill."

O Daughters of the brave, well ye abjure

The fiend and all his works. Ye know his smiles

Are fire-fly flare at gloaming, lighting miles

Of snake-boughed forests down to swamps, impure

From mind and soul decay; hence are heart-sure

That creed and racial hatreds are his wiles,

For God is Love, and Love draws, reconsiles,

And is the strength that makes our land endure.

O Mothers, as you lift your babes and gaze

Into their eyes, your love runs through their vains

In crimson flushes—oh, your love that pains

At any of God's creatures hurt! that stays;

The heavens may pass away, but that remains,

Being of Christ, who walks earth Mother-ways.

Oh, like your sires, you, too, know Freedom's worth

To Human Spirit. For its liberation,

A God unrealmed himself by tribulation,

And was an out-cast on a scornful earth.

Christ is no myth and, since with Human birth

He forms new Heavens for blissful habitation—

There unto is the Freedom of the Nation;

All other trend is down to dark and dearth.

When from the darkness rainbowed birth comes pouring,

Your virtue heeds the voice, Eternity—

Re-echos: "Let them come." 'Tis Nature's plea

For broadening progress; Nay, 'tis God imploring

The Human to take strength for Liberty,

Truth, Honor, to catch up to the stars, a-soaring.

O Daughters of brave sires, what is true glory?

No marsh-ward falling star, however bright.

'Tis inspirational; its upward flight

Lifts generations—such your Father's story,

And also yours, for is not that, too, gory?

You pour out your hearts blood in sons to fight

For honor, and cease not till every right

Has been set down in Triumph's inventory.

Oh, into daughters, too, old noble Mothers!

You pour out your hearts blood that, in your place,

They may fill up the ranks and, as in case

Of Molly Pitcher, man guns for their brothers,

And hearten firm, the trembling human race

To know, though brave men fall, there still comes others.

If Christ's foreshadowing in Juda's haze

Was of his grief, 'tis of His triumph, here,

For, is not His celestrial glory clear

In Freedom for all men? First, gaseous rays

In Maryland, then rounded firm full blaze

In the Republic, it draws every sphere

Of Human welfare, whether far or near,

From depths occult to nights with dawns and days.

The Freedom of the Generation's longing

Reflects Lord Christ in glory, hour by hour,

With more distinctness, as you, with His power,

Free heart and brain from every brother-wronging,

And give your offspring, these, as flesh and dower,

To live and lead the millions, hither thronging.

Oh, ever Mothers—shaping robust youth

No less than infant, and as perfectly!

There's life blood to their veins from when on knee

To when thy battle, from your broadening ruth

For Human kind and fervent love of truth.

If, like their fathers, they have come to be

The wonder of the world, for liberty,

Your virtue, 'tis, that in their valor greweth.

Oh, as the Roman Mother, when she showed

For jewels, her two sons, saw each of them

In Time's Tiara, glittering there a gem;

So, see your offspring shine. The light, bestowed

Your Fathers, in your sons is diamond flame,

Encircling Freedom's ocean-walled abode.

Is it Apocalyptic Vision, when

White-winged Columbus swoops from Spain's palmed shore

And, from dark depths, lifts at San Salvador,

A continent, adrip with streams which, then,

Become the fountain of the Psalmist's ken,

Where Right the heart, from hoof to horn foam-hoar

From craggy speed, slakes thirst, and, evermore,

Comes Hope's whole clattering herd?—you chant, "Amen."

Aye, for your sires made earth this new creation

Where, from San Salvadore and Plymouth Reef

To Westward Mission Trails, ascends belief

In God and, therefore, in the Soul's Salvation

Through Freedom, in white, spiral spray which grief

Sees, spite earth-mists, or solar obscuration.

Soar thou aloft, though thou ascend alone,

O Human Spirit! Thou canst not be lost.

What though yon stars, the azure's nightly frost

Melt dark, or mount round thee an arctic zone!

Thou hast sun-warmth and star-source of thine own.

If thou mount not, how bitter is the cost!

What anguish, when whirled down, or tempest tossed,

To know how high toward God thou mightst have flown!

Vault Godward, Poet. What though few may climb

The mountain and the star on trail of thee?

Thy wing-flash beams toward Man, and, if it be

True inspiration—whether thought sublime,

Or fervor for the Truth, or Liberty—

Thy light will reach the earth in goodly time.

Forming the great Atlantic, see God take

The mist from woe's white mountain, spring and stream,

The breath of man in frost, the spiral lean

From roof-cracked caves where, though the heart may break,

The soul will not lie torpid, like the snake,—

And battle smoke. On them He breathes with dream

And, Lo! an Angel with a sword agleam

'Twix the Old World and New for Justice's sake.

What sea so broad, as that from Human weeping?

Or Sun so flaming, as the Angel's sword

Of Human and Devine Wills in accord?

There, with sword-flash of myriad waves, joy-leaping,

Shall loom forever, Freedom's watch and ward,

With the New World in his Seraphic keeping.

This is thy glory, Man, that thou art free.

'Tis in thy freedom, thy resemblance lies

To thy Creator. Nature, which, tide-wise,

Is flood and ebb, bounds not sky flight for thee.

Lo! as the sun arises from the sea,

Startling all beauty God-ward, thou dost rise

With mind to God in heaven, from finite ties,

And there, in freedom, thou art great as He.

Meeting thy God with mind, 'tis thine to choose,

Wheather to follow him with love and soar,

Or dream Him myth and, rather than adore,

Plunge headlong into Nature's whirl and ooze.

Thine is full freedom. Ah! could God do more

To liken thee to Him, and love, infuse?

God loves the stars; else why star-shape the dew

For the unbreathing, shy, heart-hiding rose?

And when earth darkens, and the North wind blows,

Why into stars, flake every cloud's black brew?

What fitter forms for longings high and true,

Man's hopes, ideals, than bright orbs like those

Asbine from Nature's dawn to Nature's close,

In clusters, prisming every dazzling hue?

Nor is the Sun with harvests in its heat,

And that, sky-hidden, makes the moon at night,

An earth-ward cascade for its leaps of light,

More real, or a world force more complete,

Than Faith and Hope, that brake through clouds with sight

Of evil's foil and ultimate defeat.

O Freedom! Born amid resplendent spheres,

And, with God-like creative power, endowed,

Hast thou, to human life's blue depths, not vowed

A splendor, not alone like that which 'pears

At present, where the upper asure clears,

But that the Nebulae will yet unshroud?

I hear thy far off cry where thou art lone,

A John the Baptist: "Lo! one greater nears."

What is this Greater—this which is to meet

The planets and ascend high, high and higher?

The right of human spirit to aspire

And mount, unhampered—and by act, complete

Creations harmony, as by desire,

Proclaimed by brain with throb, by heart with beat.

In thy descent through azures, all aglow

With circling spheres, the beauty of each blaze,

And grandeur, then, of all, entrance thy gaze.

Thou thinkest, why not thus all life below?

Perceiving, then that all the breezes blow

Upward and onward, in the skyey maze,

Thou wouldst go back and start with them, to raise

A new creation from chaotic throe.

Thou seest plainly that without that breeze,

The breath of God, all that thou couldst create,

Were lifeless, save to turn on thee with hate,

And chase an age with grim atrocities;

But with that breath, thou couldst raise life to mate

The Planet's splendor, in the azures Peace.

O Freedom! as thy sister spirit, Spring,

Pausing above the earth, sees every hue

Of her prismatic crown, reflected true

In forests and in fields, and fledgling's wing,

So thou dost see thy spirit glorying

With faith, that man is more than Nature's spew—

In human spirit that, from beauty drew

First breath to know that soul is more than thing.

O Freedom! fain we follow thee in flight

From chaos to God's glory round and round,

Aloft! how like an elk pursued by hound,

To brinks thou springest toward the distant height

And, on bent knees, then speedest without sound,

Like Faith through Death, till, lo! thou dost alight.

"Ye Wreaches, who would lay proud England's head

Upon the block, and raise her features, then,

Bloodless and ghastly, for the scorn of men!

Begone forever. Go where terrors spread

Their sea and forest mouths to crush you dead.

Oh, how the clouds shall crimson from each glen,

A roar with blaze, and flame search out each fen,

If back to us, yea e'er are vomited."

To this Parental blessing and God-speed,

The Pilgrim Fathers gladly made reply:

"These waves are Conscience's wings along the sky;

They carry us to God, whose call we heed.

The further from thy coast of hate and lie,

The nearer God. On! On!—that is our creed."

O Sun and Stars! bear ye Earth's thanks to God;

For Oh! what waters, slaking every thirst

Of heart, mind, spirit, in long cascades burst

From Plymouth Rock, when struck by Freedom's rod!

No wanderer in the burning sand, unshod,

Plods man with lolling tongue, dog-like, as erst;

For lo! this fountain, deepening from the first,

Floods Earth's old wells and greens Life's sand to sod.

Oh, more those waters than the Font of Youth,

For which, through field and swamp, the Spaniard ran!

For they are clear with God's eternal truth

Of fatherhood, hence brotherhood of man,

And are no dream. They quench all human drouth

And cleanse man's desert dust of sect and clan.

Of Expeditions in the Arctic Past,

All honor to the one that reached the pole

And formed a settlement where every soul

Enjoyed full freedom. There above the blast,

How musical the bell, by Justice cast!

It welcomed all to come. It ceased to toll

After a while, but why? Those, welcomed, stole

And dragged it where the ice formed thick and fast.

Of Arctic Expeditions there is none

So profitable to the human race

As that toward Freedom's pole, and hence men face

All storms to reach it. If they fail, the sun

Has but one joy—to thaw out wrecks, and trace

Man's progress where alone it can be done.

Say, what is Ma-jest-y without externals?

Is Burke's analysis not right—"A Jest"?

Ah, but a jest, at which the poor, oft pressed

To their last heart-drop, laugh not, like court journals.

The King needs coin, and, where he sowed no kernels,

Wants the whole forest for his hawks to nest

And breed in, and became an annual pest;

In this the farmers show that they discern ills.

Hark! blares the tyrant's horn and, in a thrice,

The Tories gather. Eagerly they band,

For is the King not greater than the land?

And rows with royalty, a rabble's vice?

Besides, what creeping tribes at his command,

And Spies and Hessians at a ferret's price!

To Arms! shouts Freedom to her sons. Behold!

How, like Job's war-horse, they gulp down the ground

To battle! What care they how foes surround?

Oh, joy to Celts, nigh half the true and bold!

There, with the roar of all their wrongs uprolled

From ancient depths, they dash with billow-bound

Up rock and summit, and through cave and mound,

Spurning both Tyrants' steel and Treason's gold.

No tide are they to ebb in heart and spirit.

If dashed back, they return with all the force

Of six dark sea's momentum on its course

For vengeance on the vile, who disinherit

The human-being—shut off every source

Of happiness, or let but Serf's draw near it!

The wounded Sidney, who despite his thirst,

Gave water to his comrade, shines, a lamp

In the Cimerian dark of Britain's camp.

Even the Raleigh, who so finely versed,

Preferred to such a light, the flame accursed

Of sword and torch, to please a royal vamp.

Is British triumph in its world-wide tramp

The Hell, still "lower than lowest"—Milton's worst?

Lord Christ! is British soldiery the swine,

In whose gross forms the fiends, exercised, flew?

Oh! watch them through the ages, they pursue

The noble and devour all things Divine.

Look! they illustrate horrors, which prove true

The Hell, which Milton's glimpse could not outline.

Look! Freedom glares and pallid as a ghost,

Except for gashes on her brow and breast,

And faint from hunger, sits awhile to rest.

Amphibious Barry, bold on sea or coast,

Mounts and spurs darkness to the Tory Host,

And, like an Indian rider with head prest

Down to his steed's hot neck in prowess test,

Plucks from the ground, a prize he well may boast.

Oh, as the sun's smile passing through the rain,

Shines forth a double arch, so, Barry's deed,

Refleshing Freedom's bones made gaunt by need,

Shines through the Ages; aye, and shines forth twain—

Both for America, from Britain Freed,

And Erin, still choked black in Britain's chain!

With France and Erin heartening Washington,

Prone Freedom rose, with head above the cloud.

Beholding her transfigured, Thrall is cowed.

His minions are bewildered. How they run!

Some follow him against the rising sun;

Others plod north. The Torries' vaster crowd

Hide in dark places, and like Satan, proud,

They hate the glory, that the true have won.

O Milton! Thou beheldest them. Thine ear

Caught their defiance and thy lightening pen,

In shattering the dark in evil's den,

Caught hope amphibious from leer to leer

Of those grim shadows, plotting to regain

Lost Paradise, or bane its atmosphere.

Who loosed our land from Britain's numbing hold?

"They who had naught to loose," the Tories say;

That is—not menials in the King's sure pay,

Nor mongrels, chained to guard their master's gold.

They were True Men. Their spirit, young and bold,

With dreams played follow-master, climbing day

From deepest night, to catch the Sun and stay

His glory for the World, then whiteing cold.

Though darkness be far vaster than the lamp,

It is the beams that lead to progress, count.

"To manhood, with the virtues to surmount

Such darknesses as Valley Forge's camp,

And seas, deep hell's sky-reaching, broadening fount,

Honor!" The ages shout on Triumph's tramp.

When hurled from heaven, 'tis thought, the fiends of pride

Caught Earth to brake their fall. The regions gave

And sank with all the hosts beneath the wave!

'Tis in those sunken regions which divide

The new world of the resolute and brave,

From the old world of king and abject slave,

Where Torries, counterfeiting Satan, hide.

Clinging, like lava, to a lifeless limb,

They think the phosphorescence of the bark

Is morning, which the long-belated lark

Is hastening to welcome with his hymn;

Else, they form poisons and breathe from the dark,

Miasma mist to make the sun-rise dim.

Old Guard of Boston! Halt; Right Face; Attention!

Order One: quell the weeds in rankest riot

Where lies Elisha Brown, in conscience, quiet.

This Brown was John's precursor. Ye, on pension

For ancient glory, now do duty. Mention

Elisha's name for countersign—and why, it?

Because with him, wrong, seen, was to defy it,

And act, else, was beyond his comprehension.

Against his home's invasion this man held

A red-coat regiment for seventeen days,

Which was a spark to help start freedom's blaze

And, therefore, Order Two: the weeds all quelled,

Stand sentries till a statue takes your place

And throngs shout, "Bravo, Brown!" as 'tis unveiled!

What is it that today we celebrate

With school recital, banquet and parade

Of our achievements, pageanting each trade?

The ousting of the English—train and trait—

And posting, then, sharp-eyed, eternal hate

To watch with Josuah's son above his head,

That night come not to help them re-invade,

However wide, we swing our ocean gate.

If not un-Englishing America in mind

And heart forever, vain the shrieks

Of Freedom, eagling back to dawn's first streaks.

Oh, yea, the sun stands, and the night afar

Holds Thrall, whose craft would swamp our noblest peaks

And leave but bubbling mud show where they are!

Manhatta! Glory flings his arms round thee

And proudly holds thee in his high caress.

What charms him, Mother, is thy nobleness

Of spirit. How his features beam to see

Thy scorn dash in the bay the tyrant's tea,

And hear thee call to Boston: "Do no less;

Else on sunlight, heart, soul—all we possess—

Will tyrant's next exact their deadly fee."

In thee I glory. Can the world else boast

A harbor, like thy heart, for every sail

In flight from sea-toss, white with horror's gale,

Or icebergs from despondence Polar coast?

Oh, fleets whose throngs, glad Freedom well may hail;

For, landing, they became her staunchest host.

With what wild glee, the British set on fire

Yon Capital, beholding in its flames,

America, robed in her deeds and fames,

In death throes at the stake of England's ire?

Though that was long ago and, then no pyre,

The stake still stands; 'tis Anglo-Saxon claims,

And Arnolds, bearing infamy's last names,

Tilt schools to raise the stake flames high and higher.

Oh, sight to strike the coming ages dead,

My country, were a cloud, thy mocking crown,

And schools, ignited by Truth's lamps hurled down,

To feed that cloud, like craters, inly red!

What! mock with cloud, Thy land and sea renown

And Washington, God's Holy Spirit—known

By the unerring World Light, that it shed?

Behold Ye Here the Happy Hunting Grounds,

Where the Great Spirit, called Democracy,

Sets every heart and soul forever free,

An Equity, not royal grant, sets bounds.

No Phaeton attempting Phoebus rounds

And burning up earth's grass and forestry,

Is lust for power; 'tis love for liberty,

With bloom and birds for wheel-sparks, here resounds.

It is the land of Spirit. "Ye who enter,

Abandon first all fratricidal hate,"

Proclaims the edict, blazoned o'er each gate.

There see all tribes chase truth to joy—the center

Convexing broad and broader, as more great

Their numbers from where prejudice is mentor.

Hark, 'tis the sea! How leonine its roar!

But, oh, how more the lion on a height,

As there he glares and listens for the night,

Having devoured day's clouds from shore to shore!

Now grows his mane of billows, high and hoar.

What scents he? Potencies escaping sight,

Till, like the cold, they icily alight

Upon a land where all was spring before.

The sun darts under earth and east again,

What sees he? First the lion at earth's brink

With head down to the stream of stars to drink;

And then, arising to his zenith ken,

Sees that which makes his high, warm spirit sink—

The blight to spring, blown here from England's fen.

What is the blight to spring that kills the seed

And raises spectres, so that stars cry "See!"

Aghast at forests, white or shadowy?

The scorn of human rights, that can but lead

The world from doom to doom! and for what mead?

A bronze for rain and rust, or effigy

For nibbling minutes—ah, not hours!—these flee

To life's progression—truth and kindly deed.

Look! How this scorn holds freemen in the dark,

Except for a flare at will that, then, the throng,

Reduced to dust, may rise and whirl along

The lift and drop of glitter, without spark

To set the spring a-crackling with bird song,

Till bud and angel both come out to hark!

O Country of the Sun's warm plenteous hand

To every germ of virtue, how below

Thy progress, mope Gold Mongers to and fro,

Who think they're vaulting from sunlight so grand,

It forms thy chiefest glory. Closely scanned,

They are gross worms, each with the thought to grow

"The Conqueror," as staged by Edgar Poe

For darking planets and a world, Last Manned.

Those worms that, moving, think they move the earth,

Or, under Growth's equestrian statue, think

They hold the horse and hero from the brink,

Are pitifully not a glance's worth,

As of thy glory; they but foul the chink,

If not of thee in warming Good to birth.

How weird a whisper! 'tis from Wallabout.

'Tis glory hoarse with calling: "Raise those hulks

Where writhe my faithful." See! the tory skulks

Behind the sun who, stooping to fill out

Their throats with his god-breath, to swell the shout

Of a free people, finds the brave in bulks,

Strewn and held fast where Darkness, beaten, sulks

That thrall has been forever put to rout.

Those mangled thousands are not dead; they live,

Refashioned men by freedom. Is the tory

Behind the sun, to mock me, who am Glory,

Being the lifted life those martyrs give?

He creeps beneath the sun and, ghastly gory,

Crys out: "Thou yet shall be the fugitive".

Oh, weirder grows the whisper into word,

As sharp as lightening, and as broad of reach,

As seas, flung down by God to every beach

Where thirsts a sparrow, or a bleating herd!

There is no soul through out the land, not stirred;

For, oh, to glory God gives his own speech

When darkness, raised by Gold, declares that each,

Hulk-held, is good but for the wolf and bird.

Is Gold grown conscious, now the Country's King

That, at his beck, the blood for Freedom spilt

Shall be accursed, and I, then, for the guilt

Of dropping not with thud, as he with ring

At Darkness' feet, be shut in mud and silt

Forever and with stars, cease, beaconing?

Oh, as the earth in discord and in dark,

When struck by Love on high with will for mace,

Keeps rattling till each mote finds its true place,

And mountain, fledged with groves, vies with the lark

To reach the sunrise; so the madness stark

Of gold, dethroning blood as God's best grace,

When struck by Glory's voice drops Nadir-base,

And blood for Freedom spilt, forms heaven's blue arc.

The shouts of millions shake Oblivion's mire

And raise Thrall's Hulks. Look! Justice's stooping sun,

Seeing in agony's each, a Washington,

Breaths life in them, and, over Brooklyn's spire

And New York's Babel Tower, they, one by one,

Hold Liberty's broading Torch of quenchless fire.

Hate thou not any man, for at the worst,

He still is brother. Will a glance not find

Whole peoples alchemied from heart and mind

To steal projectiles by a craft, accursed

By Human Nature? Aye, for, as they burst

At dusk, or midnight, slamming Heaven behind

And crashing Hell wide open, 'tis mankind

Is shattered and quick-gulping grave slake thirst.

Hate thou no man, but scorn all crafts, that smelt

The heart and mind for huge projectiles, shattered

When bursting grandly that some pride be flattered.

Nature beholds not Saxon, Slav, nor Celt;

She only sees the Human fragments scattered,

And, covering them, her eyes to rivers melt.

O Freedom! Have I ever been untrue?

When, to thy moan of hunger anywhere,

Have I been deaf? Was I not quick to share

My little, nay, give all! for oh! I knew

Thy beauty, and my love such passion grew

At thy distresses,—What would I not dare!

So, though the bellow, like a grizzly bear,

Reared up before me, on to thee I flew.

O Freedom! Is thy beauty without heart,

Or sense of justice? Unto whom art thou

Indebted for thine arm, encircling now

The world, sun-like, more than to me? My part

I glory in, for I have kept my vow.

I hold thee now to thine, if true thou art.