Classic Poem

There is a wall of which the stones
Are lies and bribes and dead men's bones
And wrongfully this evil wall
Denies what all men made for all,
And shamelessly this wall surrounds
Our homestead and our native grounds.

But I will gather and I will ride,
And I will summon a countryside,
And many a man shall hear my halloa
Who never had thought the horn to follow:
And many a man shall ride with me
Who never had thought on earth to see
High Justice in her armory.

When we find them where they stand,
A mile of men on either hand,
I mean to charge from right away,
And force the flanks of their array,
And press them inward from the plains,
And drive them clamoring down the lanes,
And gallop and harry and have them down,
And carry the gates and hold the town.
Then shall I rest me from my ride
With my great anger satisfied.

Only, before I eat and drink,
When I have killed them all, I think
That I will batter their carven names,
And slit their pictures in their frames,
And burn for scent their cedar door,
And melt the gold their women wore,
And hack their horses at their knees,
And hew to death their timber trees,
And plough their gardens deep and through —
And all these things I mean to do
For fear perhaps my little son
Should break his hands, as I have done.