Classic Poem

I .

Untitled Hero! what though war
Swells not for thee her loud acclaim
Of voice and trumpet sounding far;
Nor shows the heaven of thy fame
The star to form whose halo bright
Must rob unnumbered eyes of light;
Nor burn as to a Hero's name
The altar fires whose baleful flame
Must ever be (that fear and pride
May see their Moloch deified)
Kindled by the expiring breath
Of thousands on the field of death.
Oh! dearer far to freeborn men
Hath ever been the simple style,
The home-borne title, citizen!
Nor fear we that their hearts the while
Will deem that less a Hero thou,
Than if the laurels on thy brow,
Won by the toil of patient thought,
Green trophies of the might of mind,
Were plucked where purple conquest fought,
And by her blood-stained fingers twined.
Brighter the leaves that crown thee now,
Than those, though bright, by Valor torn
From danger's dragon-guarded bough,—
Brighter,—yea, and proudlier worn
Than those which, wreathed by Fortune blind,
As if in toiling Virtue's scorn,
The temples of her minions bind.

II .


When Freedom, for her sons oppressed,
Rose with defiance in her look,
And from her locks and threatening crest
Thick beams of dazzling lustre shook,
To other hands than thine she gave
To wield in fight her deadly glaive,—
She had a nobler task for thee,
A higher fate than e'en to be
The chosen leader of a band,
Who to her aid,
Each on his blade,
Half leaping to the ready hand,
Had sworn such oaths as martyrs swear,
Who for the faith their lives contemn,
That they for her should laurels wear,
Or she the cypress wreath for them.

III .


And when around her throbbing star
Darkened like night the clouds of war,
And millions watched the struggling light,
And cowards gazed in faint affright,
And in each other's eyes the fear
Which none might speak, and none might hear,
A secret spirit-mastering awe
The strongest and the boldest saw—
Thy voice, in words as pure and high
And deathless as thy name shall be,
Called back, like some old battle-cry,
The parting soul of chivalry!
From backwoods wild to where the sea
Beats on a shore as bleak and free,
Men kindled at that word of might,
As they had heard
Our forest bird,
Rising from fierce and doubtful fight
And perched on Freedom's lifted beam,
With bloody beak and dripping wing,
Aloud, in wild exulting scream,
The death note of a tyrant sing.

IV .


And when from her long pilgrimage,
Far wandering, through many an age,
Back to her birth-place Freedom came,—
And in their own faint hearts her flame
Kindling, they felt who deemed her fires
Slept with the ashes of their sires,—
And tyrant-slaves who had no care
For Freedom's ancient presence there
Turned pale, as on Platea's plain
She set her war-shod foot again,—
While Salamis! thy conscious wave,
Which in its hallowed depths received
The blood of the immortal brave,
With wild tumultuous motion heaved,—
And greener grew a thousand graves
Where Freedom's bards and heroes slept,
As, less for them than living slaves,
The stern-eyed Goddess o'er them wept:—
What voice was that which even then,
Heard from afar, could cause again
Her half-dejected soul to rise
Like morning to her drooping eyes!
Ah! well she knew its fervid tone,
Like her own thought that voice was known;—
The voice so lately heard before,
When her fierce eaglet, southward flown,
Was left upon a distant shore
To wing the hurtling storm alone;—
The voice, that in a darker hour,
When under northern skies her car
Turned back before the threatening lour
And thunder of approaching war,
Broke forth in tones as loud and dread
As if her dead in conflicts past,
Starting from honor's gory bed,
Had poured their voices on the blast.

V .


Our hope! Our pride! not thine the fate,
Unwounded by the hand of hate,
Unworried by the soulless pack
That bay at rising honor's name,
To follow on the open track
Of greatness to the goal of fame;—
But yet it may not, cannot be,
That thou at length hath sunk to rest;
Still, still thy tranquil light we see
As they who long by storms distrest
And driven outward see, returning,
And hail with shouts the ever burning,
Rock-lifted tower, whose quenchless light
Untroubled, on a starless sky
And restless sea, and louring night,
Looks forth like an unsleeping eye.