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Title: Our Country--Soul And Character
Author: Edward Doyle [
More Titles by Doyle]
I
Our country is not rock and wood and stream,
But soul transfusing them. What is the soul?
The substance, born of God, above control
And, when one, with God's love, called "Will," supreme;
And Freedom is the soul in thought, and dream
That Nature's beauty and harmonious whole--
God's foot-steps--followed, life attains its Goal;
And soul is purpose to achieve God's scheme.
The soul, then,--our true country,--is the brave
Who fought and bled for Freedom, or will fight
To their last pulse, last breath, for Human Right.----
Great soul! oh, how like bubbles in the wave,
Are the Sierras in cerulean flight,
To thy true grandeur, letting nought enslave!
II
O thou art Character--art only those
Who formed the good and great by thought, or deed.
All others are not worth a moment's heed,--
Mere prairie dogs, who raise gold hills in rows--
When gazing at thy glory; for that grows
With Freedom from all foul untruths; with lead
In art for weal; with science for all woes;
With hate of thrall and help for all unfreed.
No mere foot-shadow, on time's wall, art thou,
Without eye-sparkle, swing of arm, warm flow
From heart to vain, and cheeks with health of glow.
Oh, 'tis eternal heights reflect thy brow
And shoulders, that avert man's overthrow,
Threatened all times, and never more than now.
III
Oh, what if lone and long thy lofty flight,
My country? Is thy vision not as clear
As that of Vesper, dauntless pioneer
On Twilight's altitude? As from that height,
He sees plain through the thick black walls of night,
The stars all massing; so dost thou, his peer,
Behold all peoples gathering, year by year,
To scale the clouds to thy White Range of Right.
How thy lone loftness, aloof from wrong,
Refracting man-ward, God's enrapturing smile
Of fruitful fields, leads legions! On they file
And phalanx, and the vision makes thee strong:
What, though God's searchlight flares the sky the while?
It nears not thee, ear-close to heaven's high song.
[The end]
Edward Doyle's poem: Our Country--Soul And Character
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