_Ends of the riven Nation
I’ve drawn near and near,
Duty and love and honor
I’ve garnered year by year;
Oh fair they tell o’ the Lasting Peace,
And the Final Brotherhood,
But I call my sons to the signal guns,
And I know that the call is good._
Mongol and Teuton and Slav and Czech--
Saxon and Celt and Gaul--
Out of the mire at my desire
They leapt to the battle-call,
The Mean and the Low and the Goodly--
Murderer, saint and thief--
From city and plow with lofty brow
They rode to My Belief.
The Mean and the Low and the Goodly
O’er the fields of carnage swept,
And for those that returned, the laurel crown--
And for those that stayed--they wept.
And the Mother showed her stripling
The place where the foeman ran,
And he pledged to the skies with yearning eyes--
And the pledge was the pledge of a man.
Over the field of battle
The well aimed arrows flew,
Over a sea of wreckage
The bending galleons blew;
And where the arrow found him,
Or the round-shot rent atwain,
He fell--but turned in the falling
To bless his Land again.
_Ends of the riven Nation
I’ve drawn, near and near,
Duty and love and honor
I’ve garnered year by year;
Oh fair they tell o’ the Lasting Peace,
And the Final Brotherhood,
But I call my sons to the signal guns--
And I know that the call is good._