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Title: Uncle Sam's Soliloquy
Author: Madge Morris Wagner [
More Titles by Wagner]
I'm a century old and more to-day--
A ripe old age for a modern man,--
Yet they who rocked my cradle, they say,
Predicted a thousand years my span;
They christened me at the fount of prayer,
And gave me a star-gemmed robe to wear.
My first free breath was battle-smoke
A prayerful nurses did not abhor
The sounds that first my ear awoke--
The clash and din and shout of war.
They pressed in my hand a crown of might
And pointed my way to the eagle's flight.
Cannon and sword were my playthings to bless,
(Dangerous toys for a babe to try,)
The stirring reveille my more caress,
The wild tattoo was my lullaby;
And well, methinks, as they years have run,
Have I wrought the work my sires begun.
An infant prodigy I, and ere
Expired a tenth of my granted day,
I wrested from lion-grasp the spear--
A nation's power I held in sway;
I broke the gives from freedom's graves,
And steam and lightning I bound my slaves.
I flung my starred robe on the breeze,
From burning tropic to arctic cold.
On distant isles, in distant seas,
A foot-hold gained with sword and gold.
Atlantic's slope and Pacific's strand
I bound together with an iron band.
But of late I've premature grown old;
There's something wrong with the clothes I wear;
There is something wrong with the helm I hold,
Else I hold it wrong,--there's wrong somewhere.
Disease too has thrown me his poisoned dart;
His workman are "striking" right at my heart.
My head is so strangely vision thrilled
With plans to evade the demon's stay,
But all the plots that my brain have filled
Only have served to augment his sway,
And on my feet, at the sunset's door,
Is spreading a troublesome grievous sore.
I'm growing ill I can plainly see,
And many prescribe my pain to ease,
But somehow each medicine proves to be
"A remedy worse than the disease."
Though strong as ever, should once my strength
Give way, I must fall a fearful length.
My doctors say they know the cause,
And they've gone to work with eager zest,
Probed and expounded with weighty straws,
And leeches attached to my troubled breast;
I fee them well, as attests my purse
But day after day I'm growing worse.
Though they have not yet touched the cause they knew,
And are wrangling over its direful flood,
They promise to build me better than new,
And stop the drain on my famished blood;
But lest they're careful while building the dam
They'll scoop out a grave for "Uncle Sam."
[The end]
Madge Morris Wagner's poem: Uncle Sam's Soliloquy
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