 | Voices and visions |  |
162
AMERICAN IMPERIALISM
Avert, my country, from thine ear the voice
That urges empire as thy chance or choice.
Shame on the demagogues who plan thy doom
Till foul with sophistries their senates fume.
No sibyl yet among thy natal stars
Hath leagued thy destiny with kings and czars.
What boon or bourne could flattering conquest pledge
Thee whose enormity two oceans edge?
Nay, when at last, war's hells of gloom withdrawn,
White peace brings daybreak whiter than earth's dawn,
Set Cuba free, if such thy civic mood,
Yet claim no tribute save her gratitude.
Quit Asian waves; let Europe's prides and spleens
Bicker like minnows round the Philippines.
Tell Spain what heartless tactics thy soul shuns
Of Alexanders and Napoleons;
Reveal to her there is one land this hour
Lured by no lust of territorial power;
Teach her thy troops (though churlish be her thanks)
Have drummed old veteran Greed from out their ranks.
That urges empire as thy chance or choice.
Shame on the demagogues who plan thy doom
Till foul with sophistries their senates fume.
No sibyl yet among thy natal stars
Hath leagued thy destiny with kings and czars.
What boon or bourne could flattering conquest pledge
Thee whose enormity two oceans edge?
Nay, when at last, war's hells of gloom withdrawn,
White peace brings daybreak whiter than earth's dawn,
Set Cuba free, if such thy civic mood,
Yet claim no tribute save her gratitude.
Quit Asian waves; let Europe's prides and spleens
Bicker like minnows round the Philippines.
Tell Spain what heartless tactics thy soul shuns
Of Alexanders and Napoleons;
Reveal to her there is one land this hour
Lured by no lust of territorial power;
Teach her thy troops (though churlish be her thanks)
Have drummed old veteran Greed from out their ranks.
Flaunt not, Republic, from thy victory won
Coarse triumphs to the unsympathetic sun.
Hermit of nations let them call thee still;
Hermits at least for bloodshed have no will.
Agrarianism in menace let them cite;
Vast houseless plains thy tillage yet invite.
For lordlier commerce let them prate and plead—
Meaning monopoly's brute maw to feed. ...
Dear land, whose promises were half divine,
Shalt thou to deeps of sordidness decline?
About the calms and grandeurs of thy shape
Tradition's purples deign once more to drape.
Vulgar imperialism should vainly thrall
Thee whose ideals were so imperial.
The gladdest pæan of battle, thou shalt own,
Has merely for its echo an orphan's moan;
Though mightful be the warrior's pluck or grit,
The widow's heartbreak may outmeasure it.
A thousand slaughterous fields thou shouldst command
Hereafter, but with unensanguined hand;
A thousand batteries where the foe fights hard
Thy cannonades of wisdom should bombard.
And when to science and intellect low bow
The last of all the inimic legions, thou
Monarchical for motherhood mayst be,
Gathering thy children round thy mighty knee.
Coarse triumphs to the unsympathetic sun.
163
Hermits at least for bloodshed have no will.
Agrarianism in menace let them cite;
Vast houseless plains thy tillage yet invite.
For lordlier commerce let them prate and plead—
Meaning monopoly's brute maw to feed. ...
Dear land, whose promises were half divine,
Shalt thou to deeps of sordidness decline?
About the calms and grandeurs of thy shape
Tradition's purples deign once more to drape.
Vulgar imperialism should vainly thrall
Thee whose ideals were so imperial.
The gladdest pæan of battle, thou shalt own,
Has merely for its echo an orphan's moan;
Though mightful be the warrior's pluck or grit,
The widow's heartbreak may outmeasure it.
A thousand slaughterous fields thou shouldst command
Hereafter, but with unensanguined hand;
A thousand batteries where the foe fights hard
Thy cannonades of wisdom should bombard.
And when to science and intellect low bow
The last of all the inimic legions, thou
Monarchical for motherhood mayst be,
Gathering thy children round thy mighty knee.
How falls it, O my country, that the schemes
Of avarice tempt with these ignoble dreams?
Would that my verse, in hatred of such wrong,
Might flash from every line a sword of song!
Would that my words, this madness to arraign,
Were squadrons and battalions of disdain!
Would that my grief might drown, for untold years,
This rash fatuity with tides of tears!
Yet few the bards from whose firm lips are borne
Miltonic thunder, Juvenalian scorn;
And in thy peril fate allots my strain
Only the weak prerogative of pain. ...
Yet still this unction to unrest I lay—
The shadow hath stolen, but it will not stay.
For now, even now, while doubt and dread are sore,
I hear strange melodies wax more and more,
That bode through all my spirit's listening scope
Tempestuous music from the harp of hope!
Of avarice tempt with these ignoble dreams?
Would that my verse, in hatred of such wrong,
Might flash from every line a sword of song!
Would that my words, this madness to arraign,
Were squadrons and battalions of disdain!
164
This rash fatuity with tides of tears!
Yet few the bards from whose firm lips are borne
Miltonic thunder, Juvenalian scorn;
And in thy peril fate allots my strain
Only the weak prerogative of pain. ...
Yet still this unction to unrest I lay—
The shadow hath stolen, but it will not stay.
For now, even now, while doubt and dread are sore,
I hear strange melodies wax more and more,
That bode through all my spirit's listening scope
Tempestuous music from the harp of hope!
July 1898.
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