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THE SONG OF VALLEY FORGE

They will not stir when the drifts are gone
Or the ice melts out of the bay,

And the men that served with Washington
Lie all as still as they.

They will not stir though the mayflower blows
In the moist dark woods of pine,
And every rock-strewn pasture shows
Mullein and columbine.

Each for his land, in a fair fight,
Encountered, strove, and died,
And the kindly earth that knows no spite
Covers them side by side.

She is too busy to think of war;

She has all the world to make gay,
And, behold, the yearly flowers are
Where they were in our fathers' day!

Golden-rod by the pasture wall
When the columbine is dead,

And sumach leaves that turn, in fall,
Bright as the blood they shed.

P

PROPHETS AT HOME

ROPHETS have honour all over the Earth,

Except in the village where they were born; Where such as knew them boys from birth,

Nature-ally hold 'em in scorn.

When Prophets are naughty and young and vain,
They make a won'erful grievance of it.

(You can see by their writings how they complain), But O, 'tis won'erful good for the Prophet!

There's nothing Nineveh Town can give

(Nor being swallowed by whales between), Makes up for the place where a man's folk live,

Which don't care nothing what he has been.

He might ha' been that, or he might ha' been this, But they love and they hate him for what he is.

THE DUTCH IN THE MEDWAY

F war were won by feasting,

IF

Or victory by song,

Or safety found in sleeping sound,
How England would be strong!

But honour and dominion

Are not maintained so,

They're only got by sword and shot,
And this the Dutchmen know!

The moneys that should feed us,
You spend on your delight,
How can you then have sailor-men
To aid you in your fight?

Our fish and cheese are rotten,

Which makes the scurvy growWe cannot serve you if we starve, And this the Dutchmen know!

Our ships in every harbour

Be neither whole nor sound,
And, when we seek to mend a leak,

No oakum can be found,

Or, if it is, the caulkers,

And carpenters also,

For lack of pay have run away,

And this the Dutchmen know!

Mere powder, guns, and bullets,
We scarce can get at all.

Their price was spent in merriment
And revel at Whitehall,

While we in tattered doublets
From ship to ship must row,
Beseeching friends for odds and ends-
And this the Dutchmen know!

No King will heed our warnings,
No Court will pay our claims—
Our King and Court for their disport
Do sell the very Thames!
For, now De Ruyter's topsails,

Off naked Chatham show,

We dare not meet him with our fleetAnd this the Dutchmen know!

JUBAL AND TUBAL CAIN

UBAL sang of the Wrath of God
And the curse of thistle and thorn—
But Tubal got him a pointed rod,
And scrabbled the earth for corn.
Old-old as that early mould,

Young as the sprouting grain-
Yearly green is the strife between
Jubal and Tubal Cain!

Jubal sang of the new-found sea,

And the love that its waves divide-
But Tubal hollowed a fallen tree
And passed to the farther side.

Black-black as the hurricane-wrack,
Salt as the under-main-

Bitter and cold is the hate they hold-
Jubal and Tubal Cain!

Jubal sang of the golden years

When wars and wounds shall ceaseBut Tubal fashioned the hand-flung spears And showed his neighbours peace. New-new as the Nine-point-two, Older than Lamech's slainRoaring and loud is the feud avowed Twix' Jubal and Tubal Cain!

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