Ode on the sailing of our troops for France / by John Jay Chapman [electronic text]

ODE
ON THE SAILING OF OUR TROOPS FOR FRANCE

Dedicated to President Wilson

BY JOHN JAY CHAPMAN

Go fight for Freedom, Warriors of the West! At last the word is spoken: Go! Lay on for Liberty. 'Twas at her breast The tyrant aimed his blow; And ye were wounded with the rest In Belgium's overthrow.

The anguish of the night is past, The months of torment, when the roar Of distant battles rolled against our shore, Each summons sounding louder than the last; And in the surge and swell We heard the deep vibrations of a bell, The tongue of Fate, that tolling on the blast, Repeated o'er and o'er "Awake! your horoscope is cast; The Old World and the New shall live apart no more. Awake! the Future claims you. Europe's soul Hangs in the balance, and the gods contrive That without her thou never canst be whole, Nor she without thee save her soul alive.

"Like to the sleeping hero dost thou lie, Whose father's gear the nymphs beneath a mound Concealed, while centaurs watched his infancy Till honor's great occasion should be found. Awake! the virgins perish, monsters rage; The earth is mastered by Hell's Overlord; Accept the manhood of thine heritage: Behold the shield, the sandals and the sword."

The dying thunder of the ocean's voice Left music on the air. The sleeper stirred, As one who in a dream must make a choice Of pleasure mixed with pain. Something he muttered like a broken word; Then heaved his length and seemed to sleep again. And still the awful weight of that recurrent sound Smote on our shores and seemed to shake the ground.

So long, before our lips, fate held the cup, — So long we waited for the dawn, —We scarcely breathed or dared look up For fear that draught of life should be withdrawn. Vain fears! the stars that shined upon our birth Had made us freedom's champions on the earth. Thanks be to God, our page of history Flashes with all one lightning; one design From first to last appears in every line, Which, being noted, makes the tale divine, But being missed or slighted, all becomes A meaningless and aimless revery, — A tale of moving mobs and swords and drums, A maze without a key, — A history of pebbles which the sea Disturbs and rearranges endlessly.

Time was, the world a vision saw. A faith was born in nations far away From whom our life and mind we draw, — A hope, as when the earliest ray Of peeping dawn predicts the day. The ancient peoples of the time-worn earth Divined the meaning of our birth Before our life began: The Vision was America, The Faith was faith in man. Thus, when our fathers crossed the sea To found a state that should become The Capitol of Liberty, And Freedom's home, The hopes of Europe with them came, And in the new republic's name

Pæans were chanted, garlands hung; The Old World praised the great event, And blessed the untrodden continent That should a shrine provide, Where mercy, justice, strength and truth, In new-found and immortal youth Forever should abide. America became a myth That Europe's wise-men conjured with, And prayers went up in many a tongue, And seers dreamed, and poets sung And sages prophesied. And lo, before the echoes died Of that great pæan, there arose A state that to the dream replied, And gave the saints repose.

Thanks be to God who chose of old The masters of our race, And stamped an image on the mold Which time cannot efface. As if to show what Nature can, — When, teeming in expansive ease She overbrims her earlier plan, Outbursts all ancient boundaries Of farm and kingdom, race and creed, —Creation gave the world a man To meet the larger need. Nor came he unto us alone, The world's new hero, Washington.

Him did those opening thunders call That smite our shores with grinding power; His name was in the crash and fall Of every Belgian tower. By bloody pool, by reeking wall, 'Mid countless deeds of dark offence, That name went up with every cry Of prostrate innocence. For when Incarnate Tyranny Streamed over lovely France, And homesteads, roofless to the sky, Looked up to God askance,

His tattered portrait shared the doom Of holy pictures in the gloom Of each abandoned peasant home. Here by the lowliest hearths of earth, While generations came and went, His face had shone o'er death and birth, And mingled with the hopes and fears, —The household words, the merriment, the tears, —The deep religious sentiment That tells men God doth not forget. So burned he, and his lamp is burning yet.

Ah France, thou art the home of Memory, The Mother of the Muses! In thy hands The Past is safe: each peasant holds a key To archives which the savant understands, And all conspire to guard a treasury, Where flock the enthusiasts of other lands To dip their minds in thee. France, France herself doth not forget! So mused I, — wondering what we, The lost tribe of the new world, had to set Against such piety. Have we no saints? Within our atrium stands No altar to the great of other lands?

And, as I question, there appears, —An image, — pictures, statues, prints. The earliest memories of my earliest years Are filled with lithographs and mezzotints That on each wall and stair and stoop were met. Ay, let France search our homes! She'll find In many a manse, in many a nook In every old-time picture book, In every pious and ingenuous mind, —In simple folk of the ancestral kind, — The shade of Lafayette.

Another name, a sacred name there is, — A nature more than human, a great mind, — Less like to Cæsar than to Socrates, Which on our native roster ye shall find. 'Twas liberty that gave him to mankind;

And as her soldier fell he, to the last Drawing from her the light by which he shined, And knitting up his legend with the past. Subdued to contemplation's wand He set his compass by a star And pondered ever the beyond That lay behind the veils of war. The Fate of Man, the mystic aim, The unimaginable end, Floats like an angel in the flame Of every word he spoke or penned. While the dictator's robe he wore He was the poet of the poor.

Not unto us alone came he, This prophet of humanity. His was that fight at dawn that left us free To meet the issue of these darker days. Then too we battled for posterity. And had we lost, the world to-day could raise Its head no longer. Thus doth God appraiseSo carefully the weights in either scale That every ounce must count to make the truth prevail.

Such are our beacons; near them stand A lesser yet illumined band, Who of the self-same springs have drunk, And through whose minds the stream has sunk To water all the land. The old heroic creed is taught In every hamlet, grange and town, And children lisp the giant thought Of Franklin and of Hamilton. The young were never steeped before So deep in governmental lore.

What wonder that each shining rank Of martial striplings takes its way Handsome as Hermes, and as frank As lads upon a holiday! Think ye they do not understand The mighty thing they have in hand? —'Tis the religion of their land.

And when that bell-like thunder-sound Crashed on our shores and cried, Awake! Thought ye no answering lightning should be found? Behold the answer! Look around. Yea, and our winds to Europe take Not soldiers merely — but the mind, The deathless part that doth consist In our soul's message, — the debate Of life with death and love with hate, Framed by our great protagonist To documents of state. They speak our spirit; for he knew The magic horn to wind Of Lincoln and of Washington: he drew As clear a note as ever trumpet blew, While round the world the music flew That unified mankind.

Go, Western Warriors! Take the place The ages have assigned you in a strife Which to have died in were enough of life; For you there waits a quest Such as no paladin or hero knew Of all who lifted sword or wielded mace Since George the Dragon slew; For you a sacramental feast Too rich, too happy, too fulfilled Of all that man e'er craved or God hath willed, Too blessèd to be offered save to you.

JOHN JAY CHAPMAN