May we all who have never for America even one drop bled
Hear at once the horn’s song sung for each of freedom’s dead:
And awed, may we the living resolve to stand for which they fell
And to each with courage until our grave the cost of liberty tell.
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What thoughts were last in the minds of two -
So brave who fought, then heard, and knew
Their lives were not by evil in Benghazi taken,
But left alone, outnumbered and forsaken?
____
I hear coming - the hooves,
and I hear shouting from the roofs;
coming quick, and coming near,
rides again a Paul Revere -
he comes at night for the right
to live as good souls might
_________________
yesterday's song, it’s a'singing
from free mens' lips, the bell's a'ringing;
and in my heart, I'm recallin'
all those freed by those now fallen
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To a trench, we each are born,
By life, down our walls are torn;
Now shoulder to shoulder and heal-to-toe
With ears turned to the mad tornadic winds,
We wait for the whistle to blow
When over the top, the free must go;
Locked and fixed, hear history call
And worry not about the fall -
That ground before us is free
Where men may fade away
But statuesque to ever stand glory tall.
___________________________
Forever is the Duty of the Free
For stripes blood red and those reflecting light,
For stars that guide each day my way;
God grant a peace of soul and will of might
To charge with banner high exposed to day;
Grant calm resolve to pierce the fear of fatal pain
From evil that through clear skies does reign.
Life and Love have cured me of mortal death -
This dying flesh of mine to liberty belongs,
Gifted gladly to serve with pride 'til my last breath:
I pray to with me take the pains of wrongs
Of evil men, and to my final rest their ways unjust -
If to be I am no more, freedoms dreamt forever must!
________________________
To the Wayside Cemetery at Dawn
With the anguish and uncertainty of my marrow, I have awakened once more,
so I travel to meet it for the dawn -
to a land of Wollesons and Wollersons, of Sullivans and Hodges;
I travel to a land afloat upon a sea of dry blood
Perhaps the grass once stretched far and full here.
But now it is but a blanket, threadbare here and there,
To the chills of ash and dust.
Through patches of earth, through the very pores of stone,
Dawn is now arisen to find
Their grasp upon the day a’ glare.
Our joys and sufferings are theirs
As much as they are mine and ours.
Between a rusted mold and an unshaped future
Man is mortified and still.
When can tomorrow be ours alone?
Where but your wisest whispers and gentlest touches stand?
The sun is bright now,
Too bright to see
Without the blinding pain.
The day, still young, draws me on,
Yet I am certain of uncertainty alone.
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Across a field of wheat by which I travel to the day
Pocks despair this April week’s winds and rains:
Rise and face this day proud
For the mind is the engineer of empires
And the soul is time itself - the conqueror of history,
And the champion of death.