Classic Poem

Nor of silk or cloth of gold
Is it made, our banner fair
On a wild and awful night,
When the tempest filled the air,

Roared the ancient spinning-wheel;
By it, pale Necessity,
In a cellar corner damp,
By a candle dim to see,

Spun the gray threads for our flag,
Wove them firm, with care and pains,
Dyed them with the last red drops
From her own exhausted veins.

Every fresh and bleeding wound,
Every grief and every woe,
From the dungeons underground,
From the black abyss below;

From the starving villages,
From the towns where people teem;
Where, deceptive and confused,
Life is like a nightmare dream;

All the sufferings and pangs
That for long years void of truth
Had been poisoning her soul
Like the wicked serpent's tooth;

All things with which Tyranny
Had opposed her from the start—
Gall he poured into her soul,
Lead he poured into her heart—

All these things the people's Need
With the red threads interwove.
Lo, the banner fluttered, waved,
And toward heaven upward strove!

And the shadows paler grow,
And the cock's crow sounds afar,
And upon the banner red
Glimmers now the morning star!