NEW YEAR’S ODE

WRITE me an ode, the printer said;
A sonnet for the new born year
That cometh with its freight of fear,
And doubt, and hope, and nameless dread.

Alas! is this a time to wield
In trifling mood an idle pen?
The world shakes with the tread of men;
A million soldiers are afield.

To-day, the all-time question rings
In Sinaic tones throughout the land,
“Shall any self-ruled nations stand?
Or are we born that priests and kings

May rule and ride us?” And to solve
The question come the crash of arms,
And smoking towns, and war’s alarms,
And daring deed and high resolve.

The rotten thrones of Europe reel
As crimson dims the bayonet’s glance,
And ring of saber, ax and lance
Answers the clang of armed heel.

Emperors and kings grow pale with dread
As from afar they scan the scene,
Each wishing each to intervene,
Each fearing for his throne and head.

For, underneath each crown and throne
Upheave a thousand years of wrong.
The monarch fears a poet’s song;
The people bow their necks and groan;

But not forever. They have found
That thrones can fall and monarchs flee.
Mine is no gift of prophecy,
Yet as the circling years roll round,

I hear a little bird that sings
The people by and by shall be
The stronger: and that time shall see
The last of hierarchs and kings.

Poor Freedom, faint and wan, to-day
Is up for trial. And the cause
Of equal rights and equal laws
Leans heavily on the array

Of armed hosts. For, since the flood,
While tyrants ruled and cowards quailed,
One simple rule has never failed,
Freedom must be baptised in blood!

Such is the rule. And when the surge
Of charging columns shakes the plain,
And rich red blood pours out like rain,
Brave men shall sing no funeral dirge,

But raise a grand old battle shout,
Such as the Norseman raised of old,
When, bursting from his mountain hold
He put the southern hosts to rout.

Our bitter trial days will pass
So surely as the Summer rain
Will bring song birds and flowers again,
With billowy fields of grain and grass.

And those who, fighting, nobly fell,
Shall win a nation’s all time thanks.
Where death swept down their serried ranks
They slumber peacefully and well.

Then let us sing no sad refrain.
The days are glorious, if but we
With eyes of faith and hope will see
The old prelude, in grander strain,
Played o’er again to Liberty.

January 1, 1863