Works

Float in the winds of heaven, O tattered Flag!
Emblem of hope to all the misruled world:
Thy field of golden stars is rent and red
Dyed in the blood of brothers madly spilled...

Poet:

"Why this fever why this sighing?
Why this restless longing dying
For a something dreamy something,
Undefined, and yet defying
All the pride and power of manhood?
...

Our columns are broken, defeated, and fled;
We are gathered, a few from the flying and dead,
Where the green flag is up and our wounded remain
Imploring for water and groaning in pain....

The long winter wanes. On the wings
of the spring come the geese and the mallards;
On the bare oak the red-robin sings,
and the crocus peeps up on the prairies,
And the bobolink pipes, but he brings...

Do they think of us, say in the far distant West
On the Prairies of Peace, in the Valleys of Rest?
On the long dusty march when the suntide is hot,
O say, are their sons and their brothers forgot?...

Dust to dust:
Fall and perish love and lust:
Life is one brief autumn day;
Sin and sorrow haunt the way
To the narrow house of clay,
Clutching at the good and just:
Dust to dust.
...

Ready and ripe for the harvest lay the acres of golden grain
Waving on hillock and hillside and bending along the plain.
Ready and ripe for the harvest two veteran armies lay...

Come then, brave men, from the Land of Lakes
With steady steps and cheers;
Our country calls, as the battle breaks,
On the Northwest Pioneers.
Let the eagle scream, and the bayonet gleam!...

Dead? or is it a dream
Only the voice of a dream?
Dead in the prime of his years,
And laid in the lap of the dust;
Only a handful of ashes
Moldering down into dust.

Strong and manly was he,...

Crouching in the early morning,
Came the swarth and naked "Sioux;"[CF]
On the village, without warning,
Fell the sudden, savage blow.
Horrid yell and crack of rifle
Mingle as the flames arise;...

My heart's on the Rhine in the old Father-land;
Where my cradle was rocked by a dear mother's hand,
My youth and my friends they are there yet, I know,
And my love dreams of me with her cheeks all aglow;...

"Le notte e madre dipensien."

I tumble and toss on my pillow,
As a ship without rudder or spars
Is tumbled and tossed on the billow,
'Neath the glint and the glory of stars....

Call me not back, O cold and crafty world:
I scorn your thankless thanks and hollow praise.
Wiser than seer or scientist content
To tread no paths beyond these bleating hills,...

And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery, and when they had set her in the midst, they said unto him "Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us ...

Old Deutchland's the country for sauerkraut and beer,
Old England's the land of roast beef and good cheer,
Auld Scotland's the mother of gristle and grit,
But Ireland, my boy, is the mother of wit....

[Nov. 26, 1857, during the great financial depression.]

Father, our thanks are due to thee
For many a blessing given,
By thy paternal love and care,
From the bounty-horn of heaven.
...

Now a light rustling wind from the South
shakes his wings o'er the wide, wimpling waters:
Up the dark-winding river DuLuth
follows fast in the wake of Tamd'ka.
On the slopes of the emerald shores...

Once Satan and a monk went on a "drunk,"
And Satan struck a bargain with the monk,
Whereby the Devil's crew was much increased
By penceless poor and now and then a priest...

Old Father Abe has issued his "Call"
For Three Hundred Thousand more!
By Jupiter, boys, he is after you all
Lamed and maimed tall and small
With his drag-net spread for a general haul...

All-day-long the crash of cannon
Shook the battle-covered plain;
All-day-long the frenzied foemen
Dashed against our lines in vain;
All the field was piled with slaughter;
Now the lurid setting sun...