Archive for 4. December 2008

APOCALYPSE.–

4. December 2008 by admin.

“All hail to the Stars and Stripes!”

LUTHER C. LADD*

*Killed at Baltimore, Md., April 19, 1861.

STRAIGHT to his heart the bullet crushed,
Down from his breast the red blood gushed,
And o’er his face a glory rushed.

A sudden spasm rent his frame,
And in his ear there went and came
A sound as of devouring flame.

Which in a moment ceased, and then
The great light clasped his brows again,
So that they shone like Stephen’s when

Saul stood apart a little space,
And shook with shuddering awe to trace
God’s splendors settling o’er his face.

Thus, like a king, erect in pride,
Raising his hands to heaven, he cried,
“All hail the Stars and Stripes!” and died.

Died grandly; but before he fell,
(O, blessedness ineffable!)
Vision apocalyptical

Was granted to him, and his eyes,
All radiant with glad surprise,
Looked forward through the centuries.

And saw the seeds that sages cast
In the world’s soil in cycles past,
Spring up and blossom at the last;

Saw how the souls of men had grown,
And where the scythes of Truth had mown
Clear space for Liberty’s white throne;

Saw how, by Sorrow tried and proved,
The last dark stains had been removed
Forever from the land he loved;

Saw Treason crushed, and freedom crowned,
And clamorous faction gagged and bound,
Gasping its life out on the ground;

While over all his country’s slopes
Walked swarming troops of cheerful hopes,
Which evermore to broader scopes

Increased with power that comprehends
The world’s weal in its own, and bends
Self-needs to large, unselfish ends.

Saw how, throughout the vast extents
Of earth’s most populous continents,
She dropped such rare heart-affluence,

That, from beyond the farthest seas,
The wondering people thronged to seize
Her proffered pure benignities;

And how of all her trebled host
Of widening empires, none could boast
Whose strength or love was uppermost,

Because they grow so equal there
Beneath the flag, which debonnaire,
Waved joyous in the golden air:–

Wherefore the martyr gazing clear
Beyond the gloomy atmosphere
Which shuts us in with doubt and fear,–

He, marking how her high increase
Ran greatening in perpetual lease
Through balmy years of odorous Peace

Greeted in one transcendent cry
Of intense passionate ecstacy,
The sight that thrilled him utterly,–

Saluting with most proud disdain
Of murder and of mortal pain,
The vision which shall be again;

So, lifted with prophetic pride,
Raised conquering hands to heaven and cried,
“All hail the Stars and Stripes,” and died.

Clarence Butler.