A Message to America

You have the grit and the guts, I know;

You are ready to answer blow for blow

You are virile, combative, stubborn, hard

But you honor ends with you own back-yard;

You have no feeling for the whole;

What singly none would tolerate

You let unpunished hit the state,

Unmindful that each man must share

The stain he lets his country wear,

And (what no traveller ignores)

That her good name is often yours.

You are proud in the pride that feels its might;

From you imaginary height

Men of another race or hue

Are men of a lesser breed to you:

The neighbor at your southern gate

You treat with the scorn that has bred his hate.

To lend a spice to your disrespect

You call him the "greaser". But reflect!

The greaser has spat on you more that once;

He has robbed you, banished you, burned and killed;

He has gone untrounced fro the blood he spilled;

He has jeering used for his bootblack's rag

The stars and stripes of the gringo's flag;

And you, in the depths of your easy-chair--

What did you do. what did you care?

Did you find the season to cold and damp

To chance the counter for the camp?

Were you frightened by fevers in Mexico?

I can't imagine, but this I know--

You are impassioned vastly more

By the news of the daily baseball score

Than to hear that a dozen countrymen

Have perished somewhere in Darien,

That greasers have taken their innocent lives

And robbed their holdings and raped their wives.

Not by rough tongues and ready fists

Can you hope to jilt in the modern lists.

The armies of a littler folk

Shall pass you under the victor's yoke,

So be it a nation that trains her sons

To ride their horses and point their guns--

So be it a people that comprehends

the limit where private pleasure ends

And where their public dues begin,

A people made strong by discipline

Who are willing to give--what you've no mine to--

And understand--what you are blind to--

The things that the individual

Must sacrifice for the good of all.

You have a leader who knows-- the man

Most fit the be called American,

A prophet that once in generations

Is given to point at erring nations

Brighter ideals toward which the press

And lead them out of the wilderness.

Will you turn your back on him once again?

Will you give the tiller once more to men

Who have made your country the laughing-stock

For the older peoples to scorn and mock,

Who would make er servile, despised, and weak,

A country that turns the other cheek,

Who care not how bravely your flag may float,

Who answer an insult with a note,

Whose way is the easy way in all,

And, seeing that polished arms appal

Their marrow of milk-fed pacifist,

Would tell you menace does not exist?

Are these, in the world's great parliament,

The men you would choose to represent

Your honor, your manhood, and your pride,

And the virtues your fathers dignified?

Ohm bury them deeper than the sea

In universal obloquy;

forget the ground where they lie, or write

For epitaph: "Too proud to fight."

I have been to long from my country's shores

To reckon what state of mind is yours,

Nut as for myself I know right well

I would go through fire and shot and shell

And face new  perils and make my bed

In new privations, if ROOSEVELT led;

But I have given my heart and hand

To serve, in serving another land,

Ideals kept brights that with you are dim;

Here men can thrill to their country's hymn,

For the passion that wells in the Marseillaise

Is the same that fires the French these days,

And, when the flag that they love goes by,

With swelling bosom and moistened eye

They can look, for they know that it floats there still

By the might of their hands and the strength of their will,

And through perils countless and trials unknown

Its honor each man has made his own.

They wanted the war no more than you,

But they saw how the certain menace grew,

And they gave two years of their youth or three

The more to insure their liberty

When the wrath of rifles and pennoned spears

Should roll like a flood on their wrecked frontiers.

They wanted the war no more than you,

But when the dreadful summons blew

And the time to settle the quarrel came

They sprang to their guns, each man was game;

And mark if they fought not to the last

For their hearts, their altars, and their past:

Yea, fight till their veins have bled dry

For love of the country that WILL not die.

O friends, in your fortunate present ease

(Yet faced by the self-same facts as these),

If you would see how a race can soar

That has no love, but no fear, of war

How each can turn from his private role

That all my act as a perfect whole,

How man can live up to the place they claim

And a nation, jealous of its good name,

Be true to its proud inheritance,

Oh, look over here and learn from France.

By Alan Seeger

"I put this poem up here because I love some of the things that he was talking about. I love this nation and I want it to be the best that it can be. I'm not so sure about the whole France part but I believe that he makes some very good points."

The Living Dead

 

I am surrounded by luxury

I am blessed with family

I have plenty to eat

And more than enough treats

And yet the tears fall.

For no matter where you go

Even if you go high or if you go low

No matter the nation or culture

No matter the riches or wealth galore

Still the tears will fall.

Do you see their faces?

As they stand in the public places

They are the living dead

Do you a tear for them shed?

Or do you walk on in oblivion.

Do you see their eyes?

Do you see them were they lie?

There bones protrude

For the lack of food

And we walk on in oblivion.

They are the stuff of nightmares

They are the ghost that at us from the shadows glare

They are children

Forlorn and abandoned

And still we look away.

They are the outcasts

On the chain of power they are lower than the last

Did they deserve this treatment?

Their skin is withered their backs are bent

And we look away.

Look at what you have

Look at what I have

We live in one of the richest nations

With no fear of starvation

And from their eyes we hide away.

The poorest of the poor here

Is the richest of the rich there

How do we dare

Complain about our fair?

And from their eyes hide away.

Let the angels rejoice

Let them feast

For today

In dust to rise no more another one lays

And they leave this world forever. 

Let not tears from our eyes be shed

Nor let the mourners be led

For the dead do not mourn over a life they never had

Instead now they are glad

For they have left this world forever. 

By Kalyn Hassoldt 

Easter

Rise, heart, thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
Without delays,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him may'st rise:
That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and, much more, just.


Awake, my lute, and struggle for they part
With all thy art,
The cross taught all wood to resound his name
Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.


Consort, both heart and lute, and twist a song
Pleasant and long;
Or, since all music is but three parts vied
And multiplied
Oh let they blessed Spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art. 

By George Herbert

By The Fireside: The Singers

God sent his Singers upon the earth
With songs of sadness and of mirth,
That they might touch the hearts of men,
And bring them back to heaven again.

The first, a youth, with soul of fire,
Held in his hand a golden lyre;
Through groves he wandered, and by streams,
Playing the music of our dreams.

The second, with a bearded face,
Stood singing in the market-place,
And stirred with accents deep and loud
The hearts of all the listening crowd.

A gray old man, the third and last,

Stands in cathedrals dim and vast,
While the majestic organ rolled
Contrition from its mouths of gold.

And those who heard the Singers three
Disputed which the best might be;
For still their music seemed to start
Discordant echoes in each heart,

But the Master said, 'I see
No best in kind, but in degree;
I gave various gifts to each,
To charm, to strengthen, and to teach.

'These are the three great chords of might,
And he whose ear is tuned aright
Will hear no discord in the three,
 But the most perfect harmony.'

 

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

An April Day

When the warm sun, that brings
Seed-time and harvest, has returned again,
'T is sweet to visit the still wood, where springs
The first flower of the plain.

I love the season well,
When forst glades are teeming with bright forms,
Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell
The coming-on of storms.

Form the earth's loosened could
The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrive;
Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold,
The drooping tree revives.

The softly-warbled song

Comes from the pleasen woods, and colored wings
Glance quick in the bright sun, that moves along
The forest openings.

When the bright sunset fulls
The silver woods with light, the green slope throws
Its shadows in the hollows of the hills,
And wide the upland glows.

And when the eve is born,
In the blue lake the sky, o'er-reaching far,
Is hollowed out and the moon dips her horn,
And twinkles many a star.

Inverted in the tide
Stand the gray rocks, and trembling shadows throw,
And the fair trees look over, side by side
And see themselves below.

Sweet April! many a though
Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed;
Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought,
Life's golden fruit is shed.


By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Miss Bootsy

Miss Bootsy likes to wear dresses that flow
And skirts that dance in the winds blow

Miss Bootsy always has a ready smile
And a kind disposition for a child

Mischief loves to hide behind Miss Bootsy's eyes
And a pixy whispers in her ears as she schemingly smiles

Miss Bootsy loves to dance
As she hopes and she leaps and she prance's

Miss Bootsy is so named
For her shoe wear which has won her great fame

For no matter the outfit no matter the style
Her boots will peek out at you and smile


Yes winter, summer, spring or fall
Miss Bootsy love's them all

But whether the sun is shining or hiding away
She will be wearing her boots and dancing so gay

Yes Miss Bootsy love's her boots
They fit right perfectly on her foot

And no matter where she goes in jeans or dresses that flow
Her boots are sure to go

Playing in puddles or riding bikes
She will wear her boots which she so likes

Running, chasing the daylight till night
Her boots will be on while there is still light

Yes Miss Bootsy loves her boots
That fit quit perfectly on her foot

And no matter the places she is sure to go
Her boots will always come along for the show.

By Kalyn Hassoldt

A Baby In The House

I knew that a baby was hid in that house,
Though I saw no cradle and heard no cry;
But the husband was tip-toeing 'round like a mouse,
And the good wife was humming a soft lullaby;
And tehre was a look on the face of the mother,
That I knew could mean only one thing, and no other.

The mohter, I said to myself, for I knew
That the woman before me was certainly that;
And there lay in a corner a tiny cloth shoe,
And I saw on a stand such a wee little hat;
And the beard of the husband said, plain as could be,
'Two fat chubby hands have been tugging at me.'

And he took form his pocket a gay picture-book,
And a dog that could bark, if you pulled on a string;
And the wife laid them up with such a pleased look;
And I said to myself, 'There is no other thin
But a bebe that could bring about all this, and so
That one this is in hiding somewhere, I know.'

I stayed but a moment, and saw nothing more,
And heard not a sound, yet I know I was right;
What else could the show mean that lay on the floor,
The book and the toy, and the faces so bright;
And what make the husband as still as a mouse?
I am sure, very sure, there's a babe in that house.

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And havving perhaps the better claim
Because it was gassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning eqaully lay
In leaves no step had trodden black,
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

By Robert Frost