| |
| WAS it for this our fathers kept the law? | |
| This crown shall crown their struggle and their ruth? | |
| Are we the eagle nation Milton saw | |
| Mewing its mighty youth, | |
| Soon to possess the mountain winds of truth, | 5 |
| And be a swift familiar of the sun | |
| Where aye before God’s face his trumpets run? | |
| Or have we but the talons and the maw, | |
| And for the abject likeness of our heart | |
| Shall some less lordly bird be set apart?— | 10 |
| Some gross-billed wader where the swamps are fat? | |
| Some gorger in the sun? Some prowler with the bat? | |
| |
| Ah, no! | |
| We have not fallen so. | |
| We are our fathers’ sons: let those who lead us know!… | 15 |
| We charge you, ye who lead us, | |
| Breathe on their chivalry no hint of stain! | |
| Turn not their new-world victories to gain! | |
| One least leaf plucked for chaffer from the bays | |
| Of their dear praise, | 20 |
| One jot of their pure conquest put to hire, | |
| The implacable republic will require; | |
| With clamor, in the glare and gaze of noon, | |
| Or subtly, coming as a thief at night, | |
| But surely, very surely, slow or soon | 25 |
| That insult deep we deeply will requite. | |
| Tempt not our weakness, our cupidity! | |
| For save we let the island men go free, | |
| Those baffled and dislaureled ghosts | |
| Will curse us from the lamentable coasts | 30 |
| Where walk the frustrate dead, | |
| The cup of trembling shall be drained quite, | |
| Eaten the sour bread of astonishment, | |
| With ashes of the heart shall be made white | |
| Our hair, and wailing shall be in the tent; | 35 |
| Then on your guiltier head | |
| Shall our intolerable self-disdain | |
| Wreak suddenly its anger and its pain; | |
| For manifest in that disastrous light | |
| We shall discern the right | 40 |
| And do it, tardily.—O ye who lead, | |
| Take heed! | |
| Blindness we may forgive, but baseness we will smite. | |
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