No more look back
To that long night that nevermore can be:
The sunless dungeon and the exile's track.
To that long night that nevermore can be:
The sunless dungeon and the exile's track.
War Poetry - 1914-17
O Company
Of darkened Russia, watching long in vain,
Now shall you see the cloud of Russia's pain
Go shrinking out across a summer sky.
A wind in the world! Our God shall be
In all the future left, no kingly doll
Decked out with dreadful sceptre, steel, and stole,
But walk the earth--a man, in Charity.
* * * * *
A wind in the world! And doubts are blown
To dust along, and the old stars come forth--
Stars of a creed to Pilgrim Fathers worth
A field of broken spears and flowers strown.
A wind in the world! Now truancy
From the true self is ended; to her part
Steadfast again she moves, and from her heart
A great America cries: Death to Tyranny!
A wind in the world! And we have come
Together, sea by sea; in all the lands
Vision doth move at last, and Freedom stands
With brightened wings, and smiles and beckons home!
_John Galsworthy_
TO RUSSIA NEW AND FREE
Land of the Martyrs--of the martyred dead
And martyred living--now of noble fame!
Long wert thou saddest of the nations, wed
To Sorrow as the fire to the flame,
Not yet relentless History had writ of Teuton shame.
Thou knewest all the gloom of hope deferred.
'Twixt God and Russia wrong had built such bar
Each by the other could no more be heard.
Seen through the cloud, the child's familiar star,
That once made Heaven near, had made it seem more far.
Land of the Breaking Dawn!
No more look back
To that long night that nevermore can be:
The sunless dungeon and the exile's track.
To the world's dreams of terror let it flee.
To gentle April cruel March is now antiquity.
Yet--of the Past one sacred relic save:
That boundary-post 'twixt Russia and Despair,--
Set where the dead might look upon his grave,--
Kissed by him with his last-breathed Russian air.
Keep it to witness to the world what heroes still may dare.
Land of New Hope, no more the minor key,
No more the songs of exile long and lone;
Thy tears henceforth be tears of memory.
Sing, with the joy the joyless would have known
Who for this visioned happiness so gladly gave their own.
Land of the warm heart and the friendly hand,
Strike the free chord; no more the muted strings!
Forever let the equal record stand--
A thousand winters for this Spring of Springs,
That to a warring world, through thee, millennial longing brings.
On thy white tablets, cleansed of royal stain,
What message to the future mayst thou write! --
The People's Law, the bulwark of their reign,
And vigilant Liberty, of ancient might,
And Brotherhood, that can alone lead to the loftiest height.
Take, then, our hearts' rejoicing overflow,
Thou new-born daughter of Democracy,
Whose coming sets the expectant earth aglow.
Soon the glad skies thy proud new flag shall see,
And hear thy chanted hymns of hope for Russia new and free.
_Robert Underwood Johnson_
_April, 1917_
ITALY IN ARMS
Of all my dreams by night and day,
One dream will evermore return,
The dream of Italy in May;
The sky a brimming azure urn
Where lights of amber brood and burn;
The doves about San Marco's square,
The swimming Campanile tower,
The giants, hammering out the hour,
The palaces, the bright lagoons,
The gondolas gliding here and there
Upon the tide that sways and swoons.
The domes of San Antonio,
Where Padua 'mid her mulberry-trees
Reclines; Adige's crescent flow
Beneath Verona's balconies;
Rich Florence of the Medicis;
Sienna's starlike streets that climb
From hill to hill; Assisi well
Remembering the holy spell
Of rapt St. Francis; with her crown
Of battlements, embossed by time,
Stern old Perugia looking down.
Of darkened Russia, watching long in vain,
Now shall you see the cloud of Russia's pain
Go shrinking out across a summer sky.
A wind in the world! Our God shall be
In all the future left, no kingly doll
Decked out with dreadful sceptre, steel, and stole,
But walk the earth--a man, in Charity.
* * * * *
A wind in the world! And doubts are blown
To dust along, and the old stars come forth--
Stars of a creed to Pilgrim Fathers worth
A field of broken spears and flowers strown.
A wind in the world! Now truancy
From the true self is ended; to her part
Steadfast again she moves, and from her heart
A great America cries: Death to Tyranny!
A wind in the world! And we have come
Together, sea by sea; in all the lands
Vision doth move at last, and Freedom stands
With brightened wings, and smiles and beckons home!
_John Galsworthy_
TO RUSSIA NEW AND FREE
Land of the Martyrs--of the martyred dead
And martyred living--now of noble fame!
Long wert thou saddest of the nations, wed
To Sorrow as the fire to the flame,
Not yet relentless History had writ of Teuton shame.
Thou knewest all the gloom of hope deferred.
'Twixt God and Russia wrong had built such bar
Each by the other could no more be heard.
Seen through the cloud, the child's familiar star,
That once made Heaven near, had made it seem more far.
Land of the Breaking Dawn!
No more look back
To that long night that nevermore can be:
The sunless dungeon and the exile's track.
To the world's dreams of terror let it flee.
To gentle April cruel March is now antiquity.
Yet--of the Past one sacred relic save:
That boundary-post 'twixt Russia and Despair,--
Set where the dead might look upon his grave,--
Kissed by him with his last-breathed Russian air.
Keep it to witness to the world what heroes still may dare.
Land of New Hope, no more the minor key,
No more the songs of exile long and lone;
Thy tears henceforth be tears of memory.
Sing, with the joy the joyless would have known
Who for this visioned happiness so gladly gave their own.
Land of the warm heart and the friendly hand,
Strike the free chord; no more the muted strings!
Forever let the equal record stand--
A thousand winters for this Spring of Springs,
That to a warring world, through thee, millennial longing brings.
On thy white tablets, cleansed of royal stain,
What message to the future mayst thou write! --
The People's Law, the bulwark of their reign,
And vigilant Liberty, of ancient might,
And Brotherhood, that can alone lead to the loftiest height.
Take, then, our hearts' rejoicing overflow,
Thou new-born daughter of Democracy,
Whose coming sets the expectant earth aglow.
Soon the glad skies thy proud new flag shall see,
And hear thy chanted hymns of hope for Russia new and free.
_Robert Underwood Johnson_
_April, 1917_
ITALY IN ARMS
Of all my dreams by night and day,
One dream will evermore return,
The dream of Italy in May;
The sky a brimming azure urn
Where lights of amber brood and burn;
The doves about San Marco's square,
The swimming Campanile tower,
The giants, hammering out the hour,
The palaces, the bright lagoons,
The gondolas gliding here and there
Upon the tide that sways and swoons.
The domes of San Antonio,
Where Padua 'mid her mulberry-trees
Reclines; Adige's crescent flow
Beneath Verona's balconies;
Rich Florence of the Medicis;
Sienna's starlike streets that climb
From hill to hill; Assisi well
Remembering the holy spell
Of rapt St. Francis; with her crown
Of battlements, embossed by time,
Stern old Perugia looking down.
