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XI

NEW WORLD AND OLD GLORY

Dear Land of All My Love
LONG as thine art shall love true love,

Long as thy science truth shall know,
Long as thine eagle harms no dove,
Long as thy law by law shall grow,
Long as thy God is God above,
Thy brother every man below,
So long, dear land of all my love,

Thy name shall shine, thy fame shall glow.
SIDNEY LANIER.

66

From The Centennial Ode" (1876).

Columbus +

Behind him lay the gray Azores,

Behind the gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,

Before him only shoreless seas.

*From "Poems of Sidney Lanier," copyright 1891, and published by Charles Scribner's Sons.

+From "The Complete Poetical Works of Joaquin Miller" (copyrighted). By permission of the publishers, The WhitakerRay Company, San Francisco.

New

World

and Old

Glory

The good mate said: "Now must we pray,
For, lo! the very stars are gone.
Brave Adm'r'l, speak; what shall I say?"

66

Why, say: 'Sail on, sail on! and on!'"

"My men grow mutinous day by day;

My men grow ghastly wan and weak.”
The stout mate thought of home; a spray
Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
"What shall I say, brave Adm'r'l, say,

If we sight not but seas at dawn?”
"Why, you shall say, at break of day:

6 Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!""

They sailed and sailed as winds might blow,
Until at last the blanched mate said:

ઠંડ

Why, now not even God would know

Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget the way,

For God from these dread seas is gone.
Now speak, brave Adm'r'l, speak and say-
He said: "Sail on! sail on! and on! "

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They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate: "This mad sea shows his teeth to-night;

He curls his lip, he lies in wait,

With lifted teeth, as if to bite:

Brave Adm'r'l, say but one good word;
What shall we do when hope is gone?"

The words leapt as a leaping sword: "Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!"

Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck

And peered through darkness. Ah, that night Of all dark nights! And then a speck

A light! a light! a light! a light! It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!

It grew to be Time's burst of dawn. He gained a world; he gave that world Its greatest lesson: "On! sail on!"

JOAQUIN MILLER.

New World

and Old Glory

Pocahontas

Wearied arm and broken sword
Wage in vain the desperate fight;
Round him press a countless horde,
He is but a single knight.
Hark! a cry of triumph shrill

Through the wilderness resounds,
As, with twenty bleeding wounds,
Sinks the warrior, fighting still.

Now they heap the funeral pyre,

And the torch of death they light;

Ah! 'tis hard to die by fire!

Who will shield the captive knight?

New World and Old Glory

Round the stake with fiendish cry
Wheel and dance the savage crowd,
Cold the victim's mien and proud,
And his breast is bared to die.

Who will shield the fearless heart?
Who avert the murderous blade?
From the throng with sudden start
See, there springs an Indian maid.
Quick she stands before the knight:
"Loose the chain, unbind the ring!
I am daughter of the king,
And I claim the Indian right!"

Dauntlessly aside she flings

Lifted axe and thirsty knife,
Fondly to his heart she clings,
And her bosom guards his life!
In the woods of Powhattan,

Still 'tis told by Indian fires
How a daughter of their sires.

Saved a captive Englishman.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.

Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers

The breaking waves dashed high

On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches tossed;
And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and waters o'er,

When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,

They, the true-hearted, came;

Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame:
Not as the flying come,

In silence and in fear:

They shook the depths of the desert's gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang;

And the stars heard, and the sea;

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang

To the Anthem of the Free.

The ocean eagle soared

From his nest by the white wave's foam; And the rocking pines of the forest roared,This was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair

Amidst that pilgrim band:

New World and Old Glory

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