A Song of the Republic

Related poetry:

1. The Lady's First Song I turn round Like a dumb beast in a show. Neither know what I am Nor where I go, My language beaten Into one name; I am in love And that is my shame. What hurts the soul My soul adores, No better than a beast Upon all fours....
2. The Rest The rest of us watch from beyond the fence As the woman moves with her jagged stride Into her pain as if into a slow race. We see her body in motion But hear no sounds, or we hear Sounds but no language; or we know It is not a language we know Yet. We […]...
3. Battle Hymn of the Republic Howe’s Final version Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fatal lightning of his terrible swift sword: His Truth is marching on. I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling […]...
4. Shine, Perishing Republic While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens, I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth. Out of the mother; and through the […]...
5. At The Beating Of A Drum Fear ye not the stormy future, for the Battle Hymn is strong, And the armies of Australia shall not march without a song; The glorious words and music of Australia’s song shall come When her true hearts rush together at the beating of a drum. We may not be there to hear it – ’twill […]...
6. The Song of the Beasts (Sung, on one night, in the cities, in the darkness.) Come away! Come away! Ye are sober and dull through the common day, But now it is night! It is shameful night, and God is asleep! (Have you not felt the quick fires that creep Through the hungry flesh, and the lust of delight, And […]...
7. Dream Song 57: In a state of chortle sin once he reflected In a state of chortle sin—once he reflected, Swilling tomato juice—live I, and did More than my thirstier years. To Hell then will it maul me? for good talk, And gripe of retail loss? I dare say not. I don’t thínk there’s that place Save sullen here, wherefrom she flies tonight Retrieving her whole body, […]...
8. St. Valentine's Day The South is a dream of flowers With a jewel for sky and sea, Rose-crowns for the dancing hours, Gold fruits upon every tree; But cold from the North The wind blows forth That blows my love to me. The stars in the South are gold Like lamps between sky and sea; The flowers that […]...
9. Song 2 Come to the banquet triumph in your songs! Strike up the chords and sing of Victory! The oppressed have risen to redress their wrongs; The Tyrants are o’erthrown; the Land is free! The Land is free! Aye, shout it forth once more; Is she not red with her oppressors’ gore? We are her champions shall […]...
10. War Song In anguish we uplift A new unhallowed song: The race is to the swift; The battle to the strong. Of old it was ordained That we, in packs like curs, Some thirty million trained And licensed murderers, In crime should live and act, If cunning folk say sooth Who flay the naked fact And carve […]...
11. Song of the Little White Girl Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, what is the matter? Why are you shaking so? Why do you chatter? Because it is just a white baby you see, And it’s the black ones you like, cabbage tree? Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, you’re a strange fellow With your green hair and your legs browny-yellow. Wouldn’t you like to […]...
12. National Trust Bottomless pits. There’s on in Castleton, And stout upholders of our law and order One day thought its depth worth wagering on And borrowed a convict hush-hush from his warder And winched him down; and back, flayed, grey, mad, dumb. Not even a good flogging made him holler! O gentlemen, a better way to plumb […]...
13. Every Man Should have a Rifle So I sit and write and ponder, while the house is deaf and dumb, Seeing visions “over yonder” of the war I know must come. In the corner – not a vision – but a sign for coming days Stand a box of ammunition and a rifle in green baize. And in this, the living […]...
14. The Universal Language Of Love There is a universal language that is spoken by all – Both on earth and in the heavens above. It’s a beautiful language that flows from the heart And it’s universal name is love. The language of love uses thoughts and feelings To express what it wants to say, It’s the language that God uses […]...
15. The Conundrum of the Workshops When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden’s green and gold, Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould; And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, “It’s pretty, but […]...
16. Australia's Peril We must suffer, husband and father, we must suffer, daughter and son, For the wrong we have taken part in and the wrong that we have seen done. Let the bride of frivolous fashion, and of ease, be ashamed and dumb, For I tell you the nations shall rule us who have let their children […]...
17. At The Parade I cannot flap a flag Or beat a drum; Behind the mob I lag With larynx dumb; Alas! I fear I’m not A Patriot. With acrid eyes I see The soul of things; And equal unto me Are cooks and kings; I would not cross the street A duke to meet. Oh curse me for […]...
18. Victory The schools marched in procession in happiness and pride, The city bands before them, the soldiers marched beside; Oh, starched white frocks and sashes and suits that high schools wear, The boy scout and the boy lout and all the rest were there, And all flags save Australia’s flag waved high in sun and air! […]...
19. Song of the Future ‘Tis strange that in a land so strong So strong and bold in mighty youth, We have no poet’s voice of truth To sing for us a wondrous song. Our chiefest singer yet has sung In wild, sweet notes a passing strain, All carelessly and sadly flung To that dull world he thought so vain. […]...
20. 315. Song-Out over the Forth OUT over the Forth, I look to the North; But what is the north and its Highlands to me? The south nor the east gie ease to my breast, The far foreign land, or the wide rolling sea. But I look to the west when I gae to rest, That happy my dreams and my […]...
21. Corny Bill His old clay pipe stuck in his mouth, His hat pushed from his brow, His dress best fitted for the South I think I see him now; And when the city streets are still, And sleep upon me comes, I often dream that me an’ Bill Are humpin’ of our drums. I mind the time […]...
22. Mysterious Humanity I shall tell you stories about scores of troops Sent to the distant Croatian borders Medical soldiers of fortune with a sacred mission: To ease the pain and cure the wounds Of sons and daughters in genocized Bosnia Of which a moment later one would read, Heroic newspeaks roared by a government “We’re healing, we’re […]...
23. Dream Song 51: Our wounds to time, from all the other times Our wounds to time, from all the other times, Sea-times slow, the times of galaxies Fleeing, the dwarfs’ dead times, Lessen so little that if here in his crude rimes Henry them mentions, do not hold it, please, For a putting of man down. Ol’ Marster, being bound you do your best Versus we coons, […]...
24. Song of the Fifth River “The Treasure and the Low” Puck of Pook’s Hills. Where first by Eden Tree The Four Great Rivers ran, To each was appointed a Man Her Prince and Ruler to be. But after this was ordained (The ancient legends’ tell), There came dark Israel, For whom no River remained. Then He Whom the Rivers obey […]...
25. Prelude BY sunny market-place and street Wherever I go my drum I beat, And wherever I go in my coat of red The ribbons flutter about my head. I seek recruits for wars to come – For slaughterless wars I beat the drum, And the shilling I give to each new ally Is hope to live […]...
26. Sonnet II: Farewell Song Let me for somewhere I should stroll Bid thee farewell. You, eternal wonder That enthralls my soul, will always tolls Like a muezzin’s serene call yonder. Who can really reckon the lines on the palm? But I must believe in voices that compel That at the end of the tunnel, a day will come When […]...
27. The Girt Woak Tree The girt woak tree that’s in the dell! There’s noo tree I do love so well; Vor times an’ times when I wer young I there’ve a-climb’d, an’ there’ve a-zwung, An’ pick’d the eacorns green, a-shed In wrestlen storms from his broad head, An’ down below’s the cloty brook Where I did vish with line […]...
28. Dream Song 61: Full moon. Our Narragansett gales subside Full moon. Our Narragansett gales subside And the land is celebrating men of war More or less, less or more. In valleys, thin on headlands, narrow & wide Our targets rest. In us we trust. Far, near, The bivouacs of fear Are solemn in the moon somewhere tonight, In turning time. It’s late for gratitude, […]...
29. Cooney Potter I inherited forty acres from my Father And, by working my wife, my two sons and two daughters From dawn to dusk, I acquired A thousand acres. But not content, Wishing to own two thousand acres, I bustled through the years with axe and plow, Toiling, denying myself, my wife, my sons, my daughters. Squire […]...
30. The Song of the Darling River The skies are brass and the plains are bare, Death and ruin are everywhere And all that is left of the last year’s flood Is a sickly stream on the grey-black mud; The salt-springs bubble and the quagmires quiver, And this is the dirge of the Darling River: ‘I rise in the drought from the […]...
31. Anthem The birds they sang At the break of day Start again I heard them say Don’t dwell on what Has passed away Or what is yet to be. Ah the wars they will Be fought again The holy dove She will be caught again Bought and sold And bought again The dove is never free. […]...
32. Languages THERE are no handles upon a language Whereby men take hold of it And mark it with signs for its remembrance. It is a river, this language, Once in a thousand years Breaking a new course Changing its way to the ocean. It is mountain effluvia Moving to valleys And from nation to nation Crossing […]...
33. Shadows Before “Like clouds o’er the South are the nations who reign On fair islands that we would command; But clouds that are darker and denser than these Have sailed from an Isle in the Northern Seas And rest on our Southern Land. Low in dust is our Goddess of Liberty hurled At our feet, and the […]...
34. Green Fields By this part of the century few are left who believe in the animals for they are not there in the carved parts Of them served on plates and the pleas from the slatted trucks are sounds of shadows that possess no future There is still game for the pleasure of killing and there are […]...
35. Song of the Wise Children 1902 When the darkened Fifties dip to the North, And frost and the fog divide the air, And the day is dead at his breaking-forth, Sirs, it is bitter beneath the Bear! Far to Southward they wheel and glance, The million molten spears of morn The spears of our deliverance That shine on the house […]...
36. Waking In March Last night, again, I dreamed My children were back at home, Small boys huddled in their separate beds, And I went from one to the other Listening to their breathing regular, Almost soundless until a white light Hardened against the bedroom wall, The light of Los Angeles burning south Of here, going at last as […]...
37. Long Guns THEN came, Oscar, the time of the guns. And there was no land for a man, no land for a country, Unless guns sprang up And spoke their language. The how of running the world was all in guns. The law of a God keeping sea and land apart, The law of a child sucking […]...
38. Song VIII: While Ye Deemed Him A-Sleeping Love is enough: while ye deemed him a-sleeping, There were signs of his coming and sounds of his feet; His touch it was that would bring you to weeping, When the summer was deepest and music most sweet: In his footsteps ye followed the day to its dying, Ye went forth by his gown-skirts the […]...
39. River Roads LET the crows go by hawking their caw and caw. They have been swimming in midnights of coal mines somewhere. Let ’em hawk their caw and caw. Let the woodpecker drum and drum on a hickory stump. He has been swimming in red and blue pools somewhere hundreds of years And the blue has gone […]...
40. Dream Song 75: Turning it over, considering Turning it over, considering, like a madman Henry put forth a book. No harm resulted from this. Neither the menstruating stars (nor man) was moved At once. Bare dogs drew closer for a second look And performed their friendly operations there. Refreshed, the bark rejoiced. Seasons went and came. Leaves fell, but only a few. […]...