________________________________________________
Title: Dedication To The Daughters Of The American Revolution
Author: Edward Doyle [
More Titles by Doyle]
I
What lineage so noble as from Sires,
Laureled by Freedom? For, who, but the brave
Have glory to transmit? The Hero's grave
Blooms ever. It is there the spring retires
To dream to flowers, her heart and soul desires,
When winter's whitening wind, like wash of wave,
Sweeps mauseleums of the skulk and knave
From mounts of glare off to Oblivion's mires.
The bloom, for which mere wealth lacks length of arm,
And fainting Time takes for reviving scent,
Fame, with bright eyes from heart and soul content,
Forms wreaths for Valor's Daughters--crowns that charm
Not with death-smells from Human welfare rent
But breath of Country's rescue from dire harm.
II
Those crowns, not cold from death sweat on the brow,
At sight of apparitions with fixed stare,
But warm with summer, conjuring beauties rare--
Wilt not. They are dewed daily by your vow,
Daughters of sires who, to no thrall, would bow!
Which, at the alter with raised hands, ye swear,
Cheering the blessed spirits, gathered there,
That, like their Mothers, are their daughters now.
True women--and therefore, craft foilers clever--
With sons for your hearts utterance, ye sue
Not, but like Barry to the British crew,
Ye cry out: "What! we strike our colors? Never!
Fie, shot! fie, Gold! these colors, since they drew
Their first star-breath, are God's, and God's forever."
Ye know the Leopard changes not his spots.
The Prince of Peace, who spake eternal truth,
Confirmed this fact of Nature. He, with ruth
Omniscient, saw afar, the scarlet clots
Of English nature, in profidious plots
For conquest, mangling not alone brave youth
With teeth set, but old age without a tooth,
And Mothers, clutching up their bleeding tots.
Oh, yea, this beast makes his own desert, still;
And Ireland, India and Egypt show
His spots so spread, he is one ghastly glow;
Aye, as your sires saw him from Bunker Hill.
Oh, vain, gold rubs the skin and press shouts, "Lo!
It has not now one spot of threatening ill."
IV
O Daughters of the brave, well ye abjure
The fiend and all his works. Ye know his smiles
Are fire-fly flare at gloaming, lighting miles
Of snake-boughed forests down to swamps, impure
From mind and soul decay; hence are heart-sure
That creed and racial hatreds are his wiles,
For God is Love, and Love draws, reconsiles,
And is the strength that makes our land endure.
O Mothers, as you lift your babes and gaze
Into their eyes, your love runs through their vains
In crimson flushes--oh, your love that pains
At any of God's creatures hurt! that stays;
The heavens may pass away, but that remains,
Being of Christ, who walks earth Mother-ways.
V
Oh, like your sires, you, too, know Freedom's worth
To Human Spirit. For its liberation,
A God unrealmed himself by tribulation,
And was an out-cast on a scornful earth.
Christ is no myth and, since with Human birth
He forms new Heavens for blissful habitation--
There unto is the Freedom of the Nation;
All other trend is down to dark and dearth.
When from the darkness rainbowed birth comes pouring,
Your virtue heeds the voice, Eternity--
Re-echos: "Let them come." 'Tis Nature's plea
For broadening progress; Nay, 'tis God imploring
The Human to take strength for Liberty,
Truth, Honor, to catch up to the stars, a-soaring.
VI
O Daughters of brave sires, what is true glory?
No marsh-ward falling star, however bright.
'Tis inspirational; its upward flight
Lifts generations--such your Father's story,
And also yours, for is not that, too, gory?
You pour out your hearts blood in sons to fight
For honor, and cease not till every right
Has been set down in Triumph's inventory.
Oh, into daughters, too, old noble Mothers!
You pour out your hearts blood that, in your place,
They may fill up the ranks and, as in case
Of Molly Pitcher, man guns for their brothers,
And hearten firm, the trembling human race
To know, though brave men fall, there still comes others.
VII
If Christ's foreshadowing in Juda's haze
Was of his grief, 'tis of His triumph, here,
For, is not His celestrial glory clear
In Freedom for all men? First, gaseous rays
In Maryland, then rounded firm full blaze
In the Republic, it draws every sphere
Of Human welfare, whether far or near,
From depths occult to nights with dawns and days.
The Freedom of the Generation's longing
Reflects Lord Christ in glory, hour by hour,
With more distinctness, as you, with His power,
Free heart and brain from every brother-wronging,
And give your offspring, these, as flesh and dower,
To live and lead the millions, hither thronging.
VIII
Oh, ever Mothers--shaping robust youth
No less than infant, and as perfectly!
There's life blood to their veins from when on knee
To when thy battle, from your broadening ruth
For Human kind and fervent love of truth.
If, like their fathers, they have come to be
The wonder of the world, for liberty,
Your virtue, 'tis, that in their valor greweth.
Oh, as the Roman Mother, when she showed
For jewels, her two sons, saw each of them
In Time's Tiara, glittering there a gem;
So, see your offspring shine. The light, bestowed
Your Fathers, in your sons is diamond flame,
Encircling Freedom's ocean-walled abode.
IX
Is it Apocalyptic Vision, when
White-winged Columbus swoops from Spain's palmed shore
And, from dark depths, lifts at San Salvador,
A continent, adrip with streams which, then,
Become the fountain of the Psalmist's ken,
Where Right the heart, from hoof to horn foam-hoar
From craggy speed, slakes thirst, and, evermore,
Comes Hope's whole clattering herd?--you chant, "Amen."
Aye, for your sires made earth this new creation
Where, from San Salvadore and Plymouth Reef
To Westward Mission Trails, ascends belief
In God and, therefore, in the Soul's Salvation
Through Freedom, in white, spiral spray which grief
Sees, spite earth-mists, or solar obscuration.
[The end]
Edward Doyle's Poem: Dedication To The Daughters Of The American Revolution
________________________________________________
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
