 | The poems of Robert Traill Spence Lowell |  |
183
NEW ENGLAND ARMING.
I.
Along the soil whereon we tread,Our fathers' prints are hollow:
The grass is taller where they bled;
We will not fear to follow:
We have not less to love than they;
Our hearts are not the colder:
Nor shall our sons, of younger day,
With shame recall the older.
II.
We bear upon our muster-rollSuch names as live in story;
And many more, that on that scroll
Shall win their share in glory.
There were plain name sat Bunker Hill,
And modest answers met them:
Now, proudly known, we call them still:
Can they that wear, forget them?
184
III.
Our home, our own old home, is dearBy ties we cannot number:
The spoiler shall not trample here,
Or death shall be his slumber.
But ye that taught her soil to bloom,
And with fond toil have cherished,
Her flowers shall wave above your tomb
If for her sake ye perished.
IV.
Here first arose the trembling cryOf freedom, feebly spoken:
Here last her lofty tones shall die
When her proud heart is broken.
At Concord, and at Lexington,
Our fathers stood for justice:
The fight was lost, the cause was won;
In their own God our trust is.
V.
At every hearth some cherished formA lonely watch is keeping:
Our maidens see the rushing storm,
And gentle eyes are weeping.
185
That those loved lips are calling;
And never shall the tears of shame
Fall where those tears are falling.
VI.
A secret prayer is rising thereIn timid accents given:
Our battle-cry shall fill the air
And echo high in heaven.
Together we will fight and fall,
Or we will live together:
One heaven shall bend above us all
In storm or sunny weather.
1839: retouched, 1861.
| The poems of Robert Traill Spence Lowell | |