To The Republicans Of North America by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I.
Brothers! between you and me
Whirlwinds sweep and billows roar:
Yet in spirit oft I see
On thy wild and winding shore
Freedom’s bloodless banners wave,–
Feel the pulses of the brave
Unextinguished in the grave,–
See them drenched in sacred gore,–
Catch the warrior’s gasping breath
Murmuring ‘Liberty or death!’

II.
Shout aloud! Let every slave,
Crouching at Corruption’s throne,
Start into a man, and brave
Racks and chains without a groan:
And the castle’s heartless glow,
And the hovel’s vice and woe,
Fade like gaudy flowers that blow–
Weeds that peep, and then are gone
Whilst, from misery’s ashes risen,
Love shall burst the captive’s prison.

III.
Cotopaxi! bid the sound
Through thy sister mountains ring,
Till each valley smile around
At the blissful welcoming!
And, O thou stern Ocean deep,
Thou whose foamy billows sweep
Shores where thousands wake to weep
Whilst they curse a villain king,
On the winds that fan thy breast
Bear thou news of Freedom’s rest!

IV.
Can the daystar dawn of love,
Where the flag of war unfurled
Floats with crimson stain above
The fabric of a ruined world?
Never but to vengeance driven
When the patriot’s spirit shriven
Seeks in death its native Heaven!
There, to desolation hurled,
Widowed love may watch thy bier,
Balm thee with its dying tear.

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Bar’s Fight, August 25, 1746 by Lucy Terry

August ‘twas, the twenty-fifth,
Seventeen hundred forty-six
The Indians did in ambush lay,
Some very valiant men to slay,
The names of whom I’ll not leave out:
Samuel Allen like a hero fout,
And though he was so brave and bold,
His face no more shall we behold,
Eleazer Hawks was killed outright,
Before he had time to fight,
Before he did the Indians see,
Was shot and killed immediately;
Oliver Amsden, he was slain,
Which caused his friends much grief and pain;
Simeon Amsden they found dead,
Not many rods off from his head;
Adonijah Gillet, we do hear,
Did lose his life, which was so dear;
John Saddler fled across the water,
And so escaped the dreadful slaughter;
Eunice Allen see the Indians comeing,
And hoped to save herself by running,
And had not her petticoats stopt her,
The awful creatures had not cotched her,
And tommyhawked her on the head,
And left her on the ground for dead;
Young Samuel Allen, oh! lack-a-day,
Was taken and carried to Canada.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Terry

 

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A Lost Love by Dennis Lange

How could she love me like the wind –
So touch my face, and make me bend
To her, and then just disappear
On backs of white-tailed leaping deer?

As quickly as a norther blows
O’er prairie land, and never slows,
And ripples wheat like ocean waves
She stirred my soul.  She made me slave

To her, to wind, that travels on.
And after all the breeze has blown,
And all the leaves and flags are free,
Alone I stand in slavery.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2011. 

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