H 9 \0 CD tn S85 IC-NRLF $B 273 D3D OtT'f HOV 4 1919 IN BATTERY PARK. BY ALBERT RUPP. 1901: HENRY MALKAN, I WIIiLIAM ST., NEW YORK. IN BATTERY PARK. BY ALBERT RUPP 1901: HENRY MALKAN, I WILLIAM ST., NEW YORK. blime, ns hurled, freighter pp's "Bui poems forjl laced ^ that t the Bethl of the shi] .IT fees COPYRIGHTED IQOI, BY ALBERT RUPP. IN BATTERY PARK, BY ALBERT RUPP. i. Oh, man ! thou world-tramp of eternity ! Thou freedom-pilgrim of a stormy way ! What hopes and longings after liberty Have spurred thee 'round the earth, and filled thy day With fierce adventure ! What a mighty fray Hast thou been waging through the changing years, As ever out of despotism's sway Thou hast retreated, to endure the fears Of newer scenes, and solve the causes of thy tears ! II. How hast thou peopled deserts to escape Thy tyrant-blighted homes, and still the wrong Did follow in the same oppressing shape, And helplessly thou did'st flee its prong ! How hast thou been so weak and yet so strong, To suffer persecutions violent. And through experiences sad and long, To cross the wilds of every continent, And brave the angry breasts of oceans turbulent ! III. But foolishness and pain have ever been Thy richest benefactors, to obtain The ends for which thou art ; and strife and sin Have been the surest builders of thy gain, In coping back to Asia whence the strain Of evils drove thee. Thy adversity Is what has made thee run life's rounding chain, To fitter orders of civility, In working out thy vast and wonderous destiny. 444167 IV. And love has ever made thee larger grow, And face the future with a fierce desire, To live and onward plot through coils of woe, That never ceased with hunger, war and fire, To goad thee harder and to press thee higher Along the toilsome way. Oh, race of man ! "' a *. How ar-t.th.op iji thy history entire I *.*A restive 'W^rkferer compelled to span, , Through 'disappointing days, a dark mysterious plan ! {.: '-i.J/V . : v. How art thou but a seeker after what Lies just beyond thy frail and feeble reach ! Drawn on by hope thou longest for a lot, Which past events in awful chapters teach Comes not for all thy powers to beseech ; And through the blinding floods of countless tears It shineth from afar, and bids thee stretch Thy weary members after it, as years Revolve and leave thee still hemmed in a web of fears. VI. And with the changing seasons knocked and hurled, From place to place in cruel agony, Around the jagged corners of the world Here crossed by blasting pains, that mockingly Gouge from thy flesh its meanest luxury; And there thy choicest attributes of mind, Seared in pursuits of love and liberty Thou art a restless traveler consigned To roam, and for thy peace no habitation find. VII. Behold from Europe's old and hardened state, Burdened with kings and aristocracy, The freedom-seekers through this spacious gate Come madly questing for democracy. Poor, ignorant, deformed by tyranny, With bodies bent in drudgery as slaves, They land and hope with fickle imagry To have what right to live their nature craves, Released from all the wrong which murders and depraves. VIII. Thus out of Asia did their sires move In search of justice, and through many years Sojourned and journeyed. Now they spread, and throve; And Egypt 'rose the offspring of their tears. Now through immense reverses, trials, fears, They built up Greece. Now Italy and Spain Grew beautiful by toil, and the careers Of Europe's nations thus for human pain, Mounted and fell as man for liberty did strain. IX. The exodus goes on sad, mighty, grand. This harbor of the ships of every sea Harbors the indigent of every land, Who king-sick hereward flock, to live and be No more beset by fraud and villainy ; To find at last the peace and happiness, Which fancy to their lot of agony Portrays ineffable with gorgeousness. Alas ! how hopes the mind that rankles in distress ! X. Alas ! how must they stand insulting ills, For empty prospects of some future bliss, As on from land to land their purpose wills Them to proceed ! In ever-present stress, Wearied and tired by an endlessness Of unrelaxing tortures, still they roam; Compelled to seek in vain the blessedness Of here, then there, then 'yond a joyful home, Which always is to be and ever is to come. XL But yet such strife is not in man alone. 'Tis universal from the blade of grass, That bickers for its life in cracks of stone, And withers ere the burning Summer pass, To animals of huge and monster class, That shake the earth with their ungainly forms, And hold their lives through several centuries, as They fight their pestering foes of beasts and worms, And seek their weal against earth's shocks and floods and storms. XII. To be is to be pushed and tasked and pained, With burdens and responsibilities. We are because we suffer, and are chained By circumstances to the miseries Which we must tussle with. Before us ease Forever beckons to its kindly arms. Behind us kicks, and thrusts, and enmities Force us along; and thus twixt blows and charms We seek for bliss, and flee our ever-threatening harms. XIII. Poor emigrant ! think you that, for yon' light Held by the goddess of sweet Liberty, The earth is here exempt from sin and night, And from all artifice and anguish free? That idol, of the souls who seek to be Unhampered by the troubles of the world, But bodies forth a race-wide imagry ; And at its very base mankind is hurled, Through mazes of distress in constant tortion whirled. XIV. Thou comest here to make another tale Of Europe and when thou art dead and gone Thy children shall remake it through the vale Of tears, as they to blessedness grope on. For from the shining of the splendid sun, To the transactions of a molecule, Continuous battles after rest are run ; And peace is not, and thou obey'st the rule That wisely governs thee, yea, even to being a fool. XV. But by such pressing states of things we grow, Acquiring new faculties to rise, Against the causes of our pain and woe, Augmenting better seeing to our eyes, Thus making light whereby we may devise Still higher powers to o'ercome the ill, That howe'er high our course of progress flies Is ever 'round us, and with awful skill Seeks not in vain our little lives to blight and kill. XVI. Sweet Liberty ! what longings after thee Have raised up men with race-reforming might ! What kindness and what inhumanity Hast thou inspired in the name of right, From feeble plottings of the slave at night, To eleutheromania of the mass, Which frenzied for the tasting of thy light, Made bonfires out of thrones and broke like glass Scepters and crowns, that dared their trumpery to pass ! XVII. What souls like Socrates hast thou brought forth, To reason for the truth in field and street ; Or Jefferson, who for his country's worth, Lived cogently and strove to make complete The welfare of his fellows! Yet how fleet Hast thou been to evade their grandest plan ! And smiling still as noble and as sweet As centuries ago, how is poor man As far from thee to-day as when his march began ! XVIII. Lo ! there in hazy distance lies the sea, Which cuts the world in two, and makes this shore A new arena, where humanity Can focus in one nation, to explore The future loftier than ere before. The future has been scaled, and on whose soil Man's every shade and kind attempt to score A subtler progress to him, in his toil Of seeking out the goal of life's perplexing coil. XIX. And here cast grand in bronze see Ericsson An awful genius of the modern art Of war on water the most crafty one That ever dreamed of ships. Out of his heart Went forth ideas, which upon the mart Of every land determine history ; And as he did successfully impart A tenfold deadliness to strife at sea, Him grateful nations praise and honor lovingly. XX. And well does he deserve their compliments, For helping them their destiny to tread, With more improved and deadly armaments, Though more expensive than the people's bread. But by the hours of struggle, which he made Bear fruits so suitable for fame and glory, The genius is most splendidly displayed, Against the awful tenor of life's story, Which takes such effort fair to make its page more gory. XXI. So are all beings martyred to the cause That calls them forth. So that which elevates Is by destruction, while we work the laws Of the survival of the fittest states, Which is the equity that toil elates : And kings must reign though terrible the cost, And man must war though harmful are his hates For so the race expands in being crossed, And so it only gains by what is dearly lost. XXII. Thus Ericsson by aiding us in evil Thou aidest progress, which is our course Of least resistance, and does us bedevil To wrangle mercilessly in the force Of nature, with deep sorrow and remorse ; And though we think our lives could be so spent, That happiness would form a sweet concourse In all our living, 'tis illusionment ; Since nothing can be free from war and discontent. XXIII. And as the greater is the discontent, The greater is the thing that it calls forth. Peace yields no hero, and no government, Nor any object which has use or worth; And war's grim crimes must ever blacken earth, While making life's complexity proceed ; And we must fight for everything from birth To death, and in disconsolation bleed, To find peace after all where we no peace can heed. XXIV. There them great Ericsson art where the roar Of battle, and the moving hosts of foes, Call thee to aid thy fellowmen no more, By thy devising what augments their woes. There thou in its unbreakable repose, Hast not to bless the world with screeching steel, No further murderous device expose, Nor add to restless commerce flange and wheel, Which slave men to the grave beyond their woe and weal. XXV. But all this bother of the universe Is the pursuit that to thy state doth lead, From stars which swing through kalpas in their course, To mites that live a second but to breed; And man the master by his thought and deed, Of all twixt these extremes, is likewise bound Upon that course with unrelenting speed ; And sometime e'en his trace shall not be found - In the quietus of a sleep secure and sound. XXVI. For out of nebula we all have come, And back to nebula we all must go, When the unrest, that brought us forth, shall drum Us into fight no more with friend or foe. The work of life is gaining heights of woe, O'er which it must descend to what it was ; And he who most does haste it thus to do, And he who leads it highest thus to pass, He is the greatest man of man's ideal class. XXVII. Lo ! driving through the water, with her keel Unmindful of the wavelets of the bay, An ocean greyhound fleet with lungs of steel Goes steering Europe-ward her fearless way. Along her sharpened bow a swell of spray Runs steadily, and like a thunder-roll Her horn resounds, while from her funnels stray Black curling streams of smoke, that in the bowl Of heaven wheel and squirm like some distracted soul. 10 XXVIII. A host of people on her decks she bears, And in her hold a mine of merchandise. A little world within the world she fares, And to the port from which she came she flies, In her great labor to commercialise And populate the globe: and so she strives With wave, and wind, and work, to civilize; And so assists the progress of our lives, And like them, buffeting existence out, survives. XXIX. She links the weal of earth's inhabitants With knowledge of each other, and with gold To speculate upon each other's wants. She finds a market for what man can mould Out of his sorrow, that it may be sold To bring him more. She colonizes lands, And fills the lonely deserts with a bold And striving population, which demands Civility's increase with ever-grasping hands. XXX. She takes the missionary to the shores Of heathenism, there to teach her laws; And which in turn brings merchants with their stores, Creating appetites that swell her cause. Then when the discontent to combat draws. According to the needs of her design, She transports troops and guns, whose mighty jaws Unquenchable for blood soon quelch in line The wicked heathen, and to civil modes refine. XXXI. So runs the grand philosophy of' ships. With which we, not disturbed enough at home, Make more disturbance every clime eclipse. Peace must not be 'yond any ocean's 'foam, For trouble has a mania to roam, Belepering all who would have it not. Yea, it attempts to sail the very dome Of heaven, searching for a quiet spot To plant its standard there and cultivate its lot. 1 1 XXXII. From the beginning, when the scattered kind Of pithecanthropi each other fought With claws and cudgels, it was but to bind Each other with the misery thus wrought. This raised them up to barbarous men, who sought In tribes to clash with tribes disruptingly ; And chieftains led them on, until they brought The stricter progress forth of monarchy, Which pressed them tighter still in slaving slavery. XXXIII. What centuries of pain thus crystallized, To instruments of stapler government, For being stronger and more civilized, For making more of pain and discontent, Is not in words and knowledge to present. But so tremendous was the formic force, That kingdoms still are strong and prevalent; And, where republics seek a higher course, The same conditions they more stringently rehearse. XXXIV. So governments do evolutionize, From simple states crude in their means of strife, To complex bodies that can exercise The finest manners for distracting life ; And from the stony hatchet and the knife, With which the savage murders few and ill, Have grown the gatlings, that with power rife With certainty stupendously can kill, And greater havoc work with greater force and skill. XXXV. This progress is the culture of the race. For it by fighting 'rose upon this sphere. By fighting it commands its lordly place, And only fighting can detain it here. Bv bloodshed ever must it persevere And grow, and strengthen for its pressing needs; And not the sympathy of prayer or tear Can swerve it from the duty of its deeds, To make a hero rise because a victim bleeds. XXXVI. And this new-world metropolis, though framed For surcease from the military rod; Though to the hoping emigrant 'tis named The haven, by no serf or monarch trod ; Yet ere his eyes detect the blessed god Of Liberty, that lightens up the bay, Between two forts of masonry a,nd sod With bristling guns bedecked his ship makes way, And there two more loom up and awful walls display. XXXVII. He hears the bugles call and cannon boom, Before he has a chance to kiss the soil, That drew his weary soul so far from nome, In seeking for release from madding toil. Beneath the lash of sovereigns and the moil Of arms oppressing. Yet he still may think That these are but defenses not to foil His hungry stomach of its food and drink. Alas, poor fellow, at such useful things to wink ! XXXVIII. For never were such things more necessary, And never were they made so craftily ; And here thou shalt be burdened them .to carry, Upon thy back of want and poverty ; And here thou shalt have no more liberty, Than in the fatherland which thou hast flown; And here thou shalt not be allowed to see The peace that thou hast longed so hard to own; For it is elsewhere still and still shall beck thee on. XXXIX. This shore no pang nor ailment thee shall spare, Nor save thee from one twinge of bitterness. Thou dost assume not less but more of care, In daring new occasions to possess. For striving after more extensiveness, And climbing after more ideal weal, Thy penalty must be the wretchedness Their grave responsibilities to feel, With nagging obstacles and stubborn trusts to deal. XL. Mount as thou wilt within this commonwealth, From drudgery for meager crust of bread, To offices of affluence and stealth, The punishment shall still be on thy head, To be more cultivated, and be bled, - And victimized with all the heinousness, That shall suffice thy purposes to spread. Yea, thou shalt not escape the least distress, That can improve thee thus for still more keen success. XLI. For here as everywhere the fit survive, And here the unfit perish properly. Those who succeed on others' loss must thrive, And thou from this great rule of history Art not exempt, no ! neither is the fly Nor is the grandest nation of the earth ; And thou the same as they must live and die, According to thy merits and thy worth, Which are determined for thee from thy very birth. XLII. There is a fate in everything that is, A limit which it can not overreach, And a design which it can not repress. The lines that are pursued and lived by each Are lines of greatest traction, upon which We have to go; and though we love to say That we are free to think, and act, and preach ; 'Tis a delusion, and no other way Is there to be than be as being must obey. XLIII. Oh, freedom ! dream of poet martyr sage ! Thou blest ideal of enhampered mind ! How do we yearn to greet thee in an age, When man shall not be forced to treat unkind His fellow man ; when gold no more shall blind Us in the rush, and crush of preservation ; When discords no more shall the honor bind Of individual, and state, and nation ; When poverty and war shall wreak no desolation. XLIV. How do we in our strained condition long To found empires, where thou can'st prevail ; Against these heartless stigmas of the tongue, These rank diseases with which we must ail, These kings and cabinets for which we quail, These businesses of art and merchandise, That tax our brains and all our peace assail ! How do we long to see thy paradise, And there forever dwell where pains no more chastise ! XLV. Have great men suffered not enough of woe, To snatch thee from the realm of imagry, And make the practical for us to know ? Did bleeding Bruno die in vain for thee ? Were Cicero's thunderbolts a nullity To make thy advent? and had Thomas Paine Not thoughts and virtues sweet enough to buy Thy properties for us ? Alas ! the strain A pismire suffers were at meet thee to obtain. XLVL Thou art a fancy which we all must have; And he who with the greatest wisdom soars, And he who with the greatest deeds is brave, Are just as weak to bring thee to the shores Of this tumultuous boisterous world of ours, As are the meanest brute and meanest man, That care no more for passing out life's hours Than to get bellys full, and basely span The passage easiest that rounds their beings plan. XLVIL Aye, for the genius that has been and is The warriors and the thinkers, who have pressed The world to tighter living depths of this Belabored age; we owe not times more blest, For they are adders unto our unrest, By their inventions and ideas grand. We owe them rather times more deep distressed. For every progress, that they gave the land, Is but another burden with which it must stand. XLVIII. Tis in the evolution of the race, That it must grow more complex ; and the deeds That help it most in such augmenting pace, They are the most esteemed. Thus trouble speeds, Which by our efforts and increasing needs We cater to the future ; and thus those, Whom we give birth to, shall reap more proceeds Of life's coacervating cares and woes, As on from stage to stage the fruitful process goes. XLIX. I seek to say the truth, though it offend ; Though I be shunned for saying what is true, Because it is not wished. We love to spend Imagination on a pleasant view And dupe ourselves with lies that tickling mew Us from reality. We hate to bare The hideous maladies that we eschew, Yet carry in our persons everywhere, Like cowards running from a foe which will not spare. Away with the hypocrisy and cant, The scoundrelism and iniquity, Which teach Utopias where mortals want No longer any sweet felicity; When science shows, that where pain can not be, Life can not have existence ; and that where Existence prospers, 'tis by agony; And that where people feel no loads of care Is in the grave, because existence is not there ! LI. Mine is the bible of the discontent Of everything that is. Mine is the creed Of right by might, of progress by dissent; And though the cause I argue for and plead Is so unpopular, that none will read Its strong philosophy; why, what care I? My being here is thus to do the deed, Though flatterers gain popularity, Which will be naught to them as it is naught to me. i6 LII. I have no knowledge to alleviate What has to be endured ; and so I make No loud pretenses like the quacks, who prate About the nostrums they concoct to fake. I hold no paltry promises to break. I have no other object men to draw, Than that this scheme wherein all beings shake, Does in some manner manifest some law. Whereby I think and sing as I am doing now. LIII. So ye who list to me in Battery Park, Who come here wanderers upon the road That from the darkness leads back to the dark ; Who wear the sorrow and who bear the load Of civilization, which does temot and goad Ye on into more stringent combination, Stained to the marrow with the biting woad, Of disappointment and of aspiration Hear me no more for my, than for the truth's, vocation. LIV. Since ye were born ye have devised and schemed, For what ye thought delight and happiness. Your sad, benighted spirits hard have dreamed For days of rapture and surprising bliss ; As ever groping through this wilderness Of thorns, and brackish springs, and stifling air, Ye thus far have proceeded ; still to miss The realizing of the debonair, That always as a mirage drew ye worse to fare. LV. Now marriage, like a damsel pure and glad, Has stood before in shining raiment dressed ; And smiled divinely as ye struggled mad, To clasp the holy angel to your breast, And gain her dulcet long-desired rest. Alas ! ye touch her and she mortal turns, If fortune favors with success your quest ; And all her love and beauty prove concerns For bringing offspring forth that in your same fate burns. LVI. Now fame has lured ye with its splendor grand. It gave ye visions of its blessings couth, And how enrapturing it is to stand And be admired, worshipped, praised, foresooth. Ye followed it through labyrinths of truth, Through battle flame, and through affairs of state, Which wrenched from ye the precious years of youth. Perchance ye gained it, but ye found too late That it was empty of what it portended great. LVII. Now wealth before your burning eyes did hold The envies of seclusion, power, cash. Ye thought how useful and how good is gold. With which to wheedle, kindly win, or lash The world into your will ; and ye did clash With projects, intrigues and conspiracies, Until a few did gain the cursed trash ; Which hectored them in sore perplexities, And gave their souls no shadow of its promised ease. LVIII. Now wisdom made ye crave its rosy dawn, And say, There is no pleasure but in knowing ; And so through mist and mire ye followed on, And sought its light, as ever further going It glimmered hopefully its bliss foreshowing. Alas ! for all its elegance and charm, Which brought ye through vast centuries of growing, Ye scarce can grasp one cheerful beam, and warm With it your lightless minds that stood for it such harm. LIX. Thus through the past have ye been ever fooled, To hunt for what made merely misery ; And so your fate in such a round has ruled, That ye should wander on until ye see The point from which ye started eagerly. Ye could not help pursuing what ye loved, And ye can not evade the destiny, In which ye thus must work and on be moved, Till ye complete the scheme your destiny approved. 18 LX. As worlds solidify to burst in gas From which they came, so does humanity Contract to stapler states that it may pass To what it was. We see in history When tribes have reached a certain unity, They overcome their neighbors ; and they grow A higher body of civility, As monarchy, in which they undergo The process further and to higher states conflow. LXI. This strife in man, to have more density, Shall sometimes make him such a brittle thing, That he shall break to perish ; for as he Becomes more rigid in his ordering, And more complex in his requiring, He shall become more delicate to crack ; And as he strains in tighter states to cling, And as he gains in faculty and knack For clashing stern in war, he shall not scape his wrack. LXII. E'en as the individual is led To seek for fame and wisdom, wealth and love, And only find the stilly grave instead ; So is a nation led to upward move For glory, conquest, art, till it does prove Their vanities by its disintegration ; And so all things, as it does them behoove, Are bound upon a mighty destination, Back to the nebula of their origination. LXIII. And are all these contusions and afflictions, ^ These trials and disasters of the race, Spent for an end that has no benedictions More fit for it to enter on and face, Than mixing up again in boundless space, With all the matter of the universe? Must we be shocked back to our starting place, And in thin mist o'er bournless tracts disperse, After such effort spent life's hardships to traverse? LXIV. Yes ; as each one goes down into the tomb, And mingles with the elements again From which he started in his mother's womb, So all men must the silent grade attain, Out of whose equilibrium the strain Of cosmos drove them, in the exodus Of life ; as it drove heaven's awful train Of suns and planets swinging monstrous, And powerfully vast to draw them back with us. LXV. Oh! what a scene is here for reverie, To him whose mind can history unfold, To him who has the faculty to see The dispositions of the new and old ! The earth another station does not hold So rife with meaning, in the march of man ; And his imagination must be cold, And dead must be his sense, who here can scan, And not glow fervid with the thoughts of life's great plan. LXVL There lies the sea 'yond which the old world lies, The old world's continents, where man so long Squeezed in theocracies, and monarchies, And harlotocracies, experienced wrong : Arousing himself now and waxing strong, In art, and science, and philosophy ; In souls of heroism, and of song; And lapsing now in lust and slavery, Fanaticism and conventionality. LXVII. There has he segregated into nations, Which have so complex grown, that into one They do not mix and form new combinations, Whereby they can to newer forms go on. But here for such a further stepping stone In the ascent of flesh, a fertile shore Awaited him; and here is being done The operation higher to explore, Uniting every race to form the great race power. 20 LXVIII. And pain is the promoter of the scheme. The force behind compelling it along; And happiness before stands with its dream, And coaxes winsomely, and urges strong. Pain with its inquisition, halter, prong, Had prodded and is prodding them away ; While happiness leads with its siren song, And gorgeous, and fantastical display, The victims from the old into the new world's day. LXIX. As the best blood comes most to persecution, America has drawn the earth's best blood, With which to found a vaster institution Than ever yet in history has stood; And as the best dream loftiest of good, Because they suffer disappointments most, And work the hardest to be free from feud, This law is a selecter for our coast, Of those who fittest are to number in its host. LXX. Those who came first laid surest the foundation, On which the structure still is rising high ; And never yet did mortals found a nation, Who had more aptness and ability Than they did have ; for see what agony Did test and sift them out to dare the wave, And settle where cut from humanity They had fierce hunger, sickness, foes to brave, That they might be no haughty monarch's conscience-slave. LXXI. Butchered, and robbed, and outraged over there, Beneath the heartless fist of royalty, They heard that westward lay a region, where From crushing tyrants they could all be free ; Where nature breathed a kind tranquility O'er boundless plains, rich in the. vegetation Of healthful climates; where they longed to be, And live out their ideal cult and nation, And be no more oppressed by want and depredation. 21 LXXII. Here would they drink springs of eternal youth, And never know the blights and moils of age. Here would the fruits and seeds of fields grow couth, Uncursed by vampirism's sulliage. Here no hard wars would frown for them to wage. But in the shadow of luxuriant bowers Would they be free to worship, and engage In the pursuits that gladden life's fleet hours; And all the world to them would be a path of flowers. LXXIII. So shone the future when they started forth, In tossing ships to cross the boisterou.s sea. They came and colonized our hostile earth, And reared their offspring of adversity. They found a howling wilderness, to be The land so sweetly in their visions drawn. They found worse labor and calamity Than reigned within the place \vhence they had gone. But all the while they hoped, which kept them living on. LXXIV. Their axes in the virgin forests rang, And cleared plantations for the plow and hoe. Their hammers upon barren beaches sang, And raised up busy cities, while the flow Of emigrants continued still to grow. They beat the savage back, they founded schools, Built roads and churches, and expanded so On new-world opportunities and rules, That they became yet more life's civilizing tools. LXXV. For lo ! the mother-country whose distress Created them, now on their burdens tied A grewsome tax, that harder did oppress These poor endeavorers, who well had tried The freedom which was still to be denied. But lo ! the pain that drove them scattered forth, Did now unite them in one mighty tide ; And they arose, and higher notched their worth, And gave America a new triumphant birth. LXXVI. And they asserted that a government, From those it governs has its just consent. They instituted the fair argument That of the truths which are self-evident, All men have rights unto the broad extent Of life, and liberty, and happiness. Thus to them came democracy's event, Which promised freedom from the wickedness Of tyrants', kings' and peers' debasing faultiness. LXXVII. Oh, sweet and holy name, democracy ! How after they were burnt, and hacked, and gnawed, In the fierce clutches of autocracy ; How after they were outcast and outlawed Upon a shore far from their native sod; How after they were persecuted here With troops, and taxes, and decrees o'erawed ; How did thy prospect give them lofty cheer, And show them glistening worlds of bliss in every tear ! LXXVIII. It was for thee they had been suffering, With heartless rulers in dominions old. It was for thee they had been buffeting, With savages, and want, and winters cold. It was for thee they strengthened and grew bold, And broke the chains of vassalage to kings ; And in thy light they thought to dwell and mould A happy era, of the precious things They loved and dearly bought with blood and sorrowings. LXXIX. But hast thou been to them that healing balm, Abolishing political afflictions? And hast thou been to them that magic calm, Distributing concordant benedictions? And hast thou torn the shackles and restrictions, Of indigence and kingdoms from their hands? And hast thou loosed the baleful interdictions Of pain, and war, and pillage from their lands? No ! thou hast not removed what still life's growth demands. LXXX. To-day we are as far away from thee, To-day thou art to us as grandly fair, As when thou did'st allure them o'er the sea, As when to form a nation they did dare; And we are now no freer from the care Of any ill and thorn that harrowed them, For all the anathemas they did bear, For all the scoundrelism they did stem, For all the bad against which they did stratagem. LXXXI. But to the problems, which they had to solve, We have the added problems, which have come With more complexity. The years revolve With nations, as with persons, while they roam Toward ideals that forever loom Beyond their reach. One grows not old with joy, But sorrow and its duties troublesome. They were the nation's baby, and its boy. We are the nation's men, and must more care employ. LXXXII. - The man is menaced with a thousand harms The baby could not dream of. So our state Is full of fierce commotions, and the storms Of money, bribery, mobs, bonds, scandals great Which they had no ability to rate. And as the individual is pressed By what his country has to tolerate, So individuals are more distressed Than ever in the past the past did men molest. LXXXIII. And we have greater evils now than kings, And greater objects than religious zeal, Which economics to our knowledge brings, And which with endless problems have to deal ; But trusting to the future that we feel Will bring us all the peace and happiness Of all the benizons of civil weal, By hope encouraged futureward we press, And bear the sting and strife of present storm and stress. LXXXIV. Oh, man ! strong hoper after liberty, In every tempting and attracting shape ! Oh, man ! strong sufferer of slavery, From which thy poor soul cannot make escape, Though it does pester, lacerate and rape Thee into efforts frantic for surcease ! Thou art not in a more perplexing scrape, Than universe itself which seeks for peace, And, like thee, agonizes after its release. LXXXV. And now that night has swallowed up the day, And hid this hemisphere from solar beams; Behold the twinkling systems as they lay, Gyrating in abysmal milky streams, Bediamonding the sky in lacy schemes Of finery so ponderous and vast, That all the reach of thy divinest dreams Has never yet their destiny surpassed, Nor found a greater end than that for which they last. LXXXVI. For all these spheres of striving matter bound, In wheeling and elliptical unrest, In phases so complex and so compound, Are on thy same inevitable quest. These mighty volumes in their huge contest, Forced by compulsion by attraction drawn, Are thy companions in the bondage pressed, For which thou dost to liberty march on. The fate that limits them and limits thee is one. LXXXVII. They pass through fiery aeons, suffering And spurning up each other in the toil Of finding quiet. They endure the sting Of revolutions and augmenting moil . Of rearrangements, as they maze and coil In monstrous tremendous adaptations, To better meet repulsion's nagging foil. They pass though changes like our tribes and nations, Desiring their rest in further transmutations. LXXXVIII. And while they in such grand contortions swing, The rhythms that they make is harmony, As man does by his sorrow sweetly sing. For music is the quest of liberty, And action has through all eternity Expressed itself in soothing strains of song. The world 's a poet, which melodiously Does pour its soul against the blight of wrong, And for the peace whereto it is pursuaded strong. LXXXIX. Oh, music ! blessed speaker of the mind In all its yearnings after happiness ! Thou holy balm for bruised humankind, In life's beclouded, arid wilderness! How do we tremble for the stream of bliss, Which thou dost gush before our thirsty eyes ! How do we shake to feel thy dulcet kiss, Which welcomes us toward the paradise, Where there are love and rest unmarred by grievances ! XC. Thy pleasing sounds now fall upon my ears, Mellowed and softened by the evening breeze, Which scatters them against the heavenly spheres, And 'neath the arches of perfuming trees, And o'er the rippling water to appease The sorrows of the throngs assembled here, Their tired bodies and their minds to ease, With thy discourses uttered fair and clear, To brighten up the soul and dry the bitter tear. XCI. They crave thy gladsome message eagerly, To comfort them against the noisy times Of business in the shop and factory, Against the hubbubs, fallacies and crimes, Whose travail all their daily life begrimes. Thou art their harbinger of liberty From every grewsome task. Thy note sublimes Them into every precious ecstacy That thou canst conjure up in unreality. 26 XCII. And even I, who know thou art but sound, Which is no sooner felt than it is gone, Must yield to thy delusion and propound The wished-for things, for which we all must run. Thou movest me to struggle harder on, For benefits that fascinatingly Have glittered and intensely luscious shone Before me, as through dark adversity I long have bickered most humiliatingly. XCIII. I see a lavish feast of liberty, Spread for the toilers in thre land of ours; And there are joy and equanimity, Refreshing endlessly the blithesome hours ; And there are carnivals and palmy bowers Of fair delights, that every one may have; And there no more calamity devours, Nor are there cruel perils we must brave, Nor vain delusions which do mock us to the grave. XCIV. And there I see my loved one, whom the storms Of bitter earth had driven far from me ; And I am welcomed in her blissful arms, No more to roam the world in penury, Away from her entrancing company. She smiles the real maiden of my dreams, As graceful as she ever used to be, Ere frenzied by her charms I crossed the streams, Of tempest-smitten oceans to the globe's extremes. XCV. Oh, love ! thus art thou fair to meditate ! For it is thy concern to fondle us And humor us with delicacies great, That we may make life's process prosperous, To carry on its burdens numerous ; E'en as the thoughts of liberty are sweet, That nations may bring forth more vigorous And striving nations, for the awful feat That destiny decrees and plans they shall complete. XCVL Alas, poor man, in love and liberty To be so wheedled into thy own gain ; And in thy gain to be so wretchedly Distracted for the very sense of pain, Augmented to a more deranging strain, Which thou didst have before ! Yet thou hast not The will another system to ordain, Wherein thy soul can have a joyous lot, And never have a woe 'gainst which to counterplot. XCVII. Thy life is like a schooner on a sea, Which for the roaring wind is homeward bound. Without the wind the schooner would not be. Thy difficulties brought thee from the ground, They send thee through thy sad tumultuous round, And they shall bring thee with the universe Back to the equilibrium profound, From which they once all matter did disperse, Into the state it now is groaning to traverse. XCVIII. And when all flesh shall so its shape improve, That it can no more rise to higher form, Nor crave for liberty nor long for love; To better it against surrounding harm; And when all matter shall through cycles swarm, Until it need no more propulsion flee, Nor be drawn further by attraction's charm ; Then shall disintegration pacify The elements in one stupendous equity. XCIX. Then shall the sorrows and the cares of life, With all its wars, and heart-aches, and migrations, With all its hopes for rest, and bitter strife; Then shall the cataclysms and gyrations Of stars, with all their monster perturbations, Be ended in a universal peace. And no more rude excitements and motations Shall break the equipoise of perfect ease, And man shall find his endless and well-earned release. 28 C. Oh, gateway of the New World ! Battery Park ! Great scene wherein to muse on history Of universe and man, which backward hark In one tremendous painful destiny ! To further sing thy sad philosophy I cease, for it is in the silent night. The crowds have left which lately covered thee, And sleep my weary members does invite, And like the tired world I long^for calm respite. THE END. H CD CD P H- H ! P H- CQ c*- p. O CD CD P h o c+ M CD ' h CD P M bd p. H CD "I1T BATTERY PARK contains many strilci Ella Whee interest. 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