Poems – Page 12 – Poetry Out Loud

HAIL, happy day, when, smiling like the morn,
Fair Freedom rose New-England to adorn:
The northern clime beneath her genial ray,
Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway:
Elate with hope her race no longer mourns,
Each soul expands, each grateful bosom burns,
While in thine hand with pleasure we behold
The silken reins, and Freedom’s charms unfold.
Long lost to realms beneath the northern skies

She shines supreme, while hated faction dies:
Soon as appear’d the Goddess long desir’d,
Sick at the view, she languish’d and expir’d;
Thus from the splendors of the morning light
The owl in sadness seeks the caves of night.
No more, America, in mournful strain
Of wrongs, and grievance unredress’d complain,
No longer shalt thou dread the iron chain,
Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand
Had made, and with it meant t’ enslave the land.

Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song,
Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung,
Whence flow these wishes for the common good,
By feeling hearts alone best understood,
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
Was snatch’d from Afric’s fancy’d happy seat:
What pangs excruciating must molest,
What sorrows labour in my parent’s breast?
Steel’d was that soul and by no misery mov’d
That from a father seiz’d his babe belov’d:
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?

For favours past, great Sir, our thanks are due,
And thee we ask thy favours to renew,
Since in thy pow’r, as in thy will before,
To sooth the griefs, which thou did’st once deplore.
May heav’nly grace the sacred sanction give
To all thy works, and thou for ever live
Not only on the wings of fleeting Fame,
Though praise immortal crowns the patriot’s name,
But to conduct to heav’ns refulgent fane,
May fiery coursers sweep th’ ethereal plain,
And bear thee upwards to that blest abode,
Where, like the prophet, thou shalt find thy God.

Rise O days from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep,

Long for my soul hungering gymnastic I devour’d what the earth gave me,

Long I roam’d amid the woods of the north, long I watch’d Niagara pouring,

I travel’d the prairies over and slept on their breast, I cross’d the Nevadas, I cross’d the plateaus,

I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sail’d out to sea,

I sail’d through the storm, I was refresh’d by the storm,

I watch’d with joy the threatening maws of the waves,

I mark’d the white combs where they career’d so high, curling over,

I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds,

Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb! O wild as my heart, and powerful!)

Heard the continuous thunder as it bellow’d after the lightning,

Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning as sudden and fast amid the din they chased each other across the sky;

These, and such as these, I, elate, saw—saw with wonder, yet pensive and masterful,

All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me,

Yet there with my soul I fed, I fed content, supercilious.

‘Twas well, O soul—’twas a good preparation you gave me,

Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill,

Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us,

Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities,

Something for us is pouring now more than Niagara pouring,

Torrents of men, (sources and rills of the Northwest are you indeed inexhaustible?)

What, to pavements and homesteads here, what were those storms of the mountains and sea?

What, to passions I witness around me to-day? was the sea risen?

Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds?

Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage,

Manhattan rising, advancing with menacing front—Cincinnati, Chicago, unchain’d;

What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here,

How it climbs with daring feet and hands—how it dashes!

How the true thunder bellows after the lightning—how bright the flashes of lightning!

How Democracy with desperate vengeful port strides on, shown through the dark by those flashes of lightning!

(Yet a mournful wall and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark,

In a lull of the deafening confusion.)

Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke!

And do you rise higher than ever yet O days, O cities!

Crash heavier, heavier yet O storms! you have done me good,

My soul prepared in the mountains absorbs your immortal strong nutriment,

Long had I walk’d my cities, my country roads through farms, only half satisfied,

One doubt nauseous undulating like a snake, crawl’d on the ground before me,

Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically hissing low;

The cities I loved so well I abandon’d and left, I sped to the certainties suitable to me,

Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies and Nature’s dauntlessness,

I refresh’d myself with it only, I could relish it only,

I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire—on the water and air waited long;

But now I no longer wait, I am fully satisfied, I am glutted,

I have witness’d the true lightning, I have witness’d my cities electric,

I have lived to behold man burst forth and warlike America rise,

Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds,

No more the mountains roam or sail the stormy sea.

Here blooms the legend, fed by Time and Chance,
Fresh as the morning, though with centuries old,
The whitest lily on the shield of France,
With heart of virgin gold.

Along the square she moved, sweet Joan of Arc,
With face more pallid than a daylit star,
Half-seen, half-doubted, while before her dark
Stretched the array of war.

Swift passed the battle-smoke of lying breath
From off her path, as if a wind had blown,
Showing no faithless King, but righteous Death
On the low wooden throne.

He would reward her: she who meekly wore
Alike the gilded mail and peasant gown,
As meekly now received one honor more,
The formless, fiery crown.

A white dove trembled up the heated air,
And in the opening zenith found its goal;
Soft as a downward feather, dropped a prayer
For each repentant soul.

Staccato! Staccato!
Leggier agitato!
   In and out does the melody twist—
Unique proposition
Is this composition.
   (Alas! for the player who hasn’t the wrist!)
Now in the dominant
Theme ringing prominent,
   Bass still repeating its one monotone,
Double notes crying,
Up keyboard go flying,
   The change to the minor comes in like a groan.
Without a cessation
A chaste modulation
   Hastens adown to subdominant key,
Where melody mellow-like
Singing so ’cello-like
   Rises and falls in a wild ecstasy.
Scarce is this finished
When chords all diminished
   Break loose in a patter that comes down like rain;
A pedal-point wonder
Rivaling thunder,
   Now all is mad agitation again.
Like laughter jolly
Begins the finale;
   Again does the ’cello its tones seem to lend
Diminuendo ad molto crescendo.
   Ah! Rubinstein only could make such an end!

It is said that many a king in troubled Europe would sell his crown for a day of happiness.

I have seen a monarch who held tightly the jewel of happiness.

On Lombard street in Philadelphia, as evening dropped to earth, I gazed upon a laborer duskier than a sky devoid of moon. He was seated on a throne of flour bags, waving his hand imperiously as two small boys played on their guitars the ragtime tunes of the day.

God’s blessing on the monarch who rules on Lombard Street in Philadelphia.

Long hast thou suffered, sister of my heart,
             Still thou art
              Fair to see ;
Thy pains thou entertainest with thy song,
              But how long
              Will this be?

The seasons all have come and gone, my dear,
              But thy cheer
              Still abides.
I ask which of thy moan or song is best
             And thou sayst :
             “God decides.”

I feel the ebbing of the undertone
             Of thy moan
              In thy song ;
How long will tears and irony compete
              For thee, Sweet,
              O, how long?

When wilt thou, Baby dear, with nimble feet,
              Run to greet
              Me at the door?
When wilt thou, Saada, walk again with me
              Near the sea,
              As before?

O sister, how I wish to see thee run,
              In the sun,
              On the sands !
The singing breakers and the smiling beach
              To thee reach
              Out their hands.

The light of day is longing for thy face
              And the grace
              Of thy form ;
O how I wish to see thee, Noor-ul-Ain
              Caught again
              In the storm !

Some are teethed on a silver spoon,
With the stars strung for a rattle;
I cut my teeth as the black raccoon—
For implements of battle.

Some are swaddled in silk and down,
And heralded by a star;
They swathed my limbs in a sackcloth gown
On a night that was black as tar.

For some, godfather and goddame
The opulent fairies be;
Dame Poverty gave me my name,
And Pain godfathered me.

For I was born on Saturday—
“Bad time for planting a seed,”
Was all my father had to say,
And, “One mouth more to feed.”

Death cut the strings that gave me life,
And handed me to Sorrow,
The only kind of middle wife
My folks could beg or borrow.

And what would I do in heaven, pray,

Me with my dancing feet,

And limbs like apple boughs that sway

When the gusty rain winds beat?

And how would I thrive in a perfect place

Where dancing would be sin,

With not a man to love my face,

Nor an arm to hold me in?

The seraphs and the cherubim

Would be too proud to bend

To sing the feary tunes that brim

My heart from end to end.

The wistful angels down in hell

Will smile to see my face,

And understand, because they fell

From that all-perfect place.

Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest;
Home-keeping hearts are happiest,
For those that wander they know not where
Are full of trouble and full of care;
       To stay at home is best.

Weary and homesick and distressed,
They wander east, they wander west,
And are baffled and beaten and blown about
By the winds of the wilderness of doubt;
       To stay at home is best.

Then stay at home, my heart, and rest;
The bird is safest in its nest;
O’er all that flutter their wings and fly
A hawk is hovering in the sky;
       To stay at home is best.

Shake your brown feet, honey,
Shake your brown feet, chile,
Shake your brown feet, honey,
Shake ’em swift and wil’–
Get way back, honey,
Do that low-down step.
Walk on over, darling,
Now! Come out
With your left.
Shake your brown feet, honey,
Shake ’em, honey chile.

Sun’s going down this evening–
Might never rise no mo’.
The sun’s going down this very night–
Might never rise no mo’–
So dance with swift feet, honey,
(The banjo’s sobbing low)
Dance with swift feet, honey–
Might never dance no mo’.

Shake your brown feet, Liza,
Shake ’em, Liza, chile,
Shake your brown feet, Liza,
(The music’s soft and wil’)
Shake your brown feet, Liza,
(The banjo’s sobbing low)
The sun’s going down this very night–
Might never rise no mo’.