ms ever. It is there the spring retires
To dream to flowers, her heart and soul desires,
When winter's whitening wind, like wash of wave,
Sweeps mauseleums of the skulk and knave
From mounts of glare off to Oblivion's mires.

The bloom, for which mere wealth lacks length of arm,
And fainting Time takes for reviving scent,
Fame, with bright eyes from heart and soul content,
Forms wreaths for Valor's Daughters--crowns that charm
Not with death-smells from Human welfare rent
But breath of Country's rescue from dire harm.

II

Those crowns, not cold from death sweat on the brow,
At sight of apparitions with fixed stare,
But warm with summer, conjuring beauties rare--
Wilt not. They are dewed daily by your vow,
Daughters of sires who, to no thrall, would bow!
Which, at the alter with raised hands, ye swear,
Cheering the blessed spirits, gathered there,
That, like their Mothers, are their daughters now.

True women--and therefore, craft foilers clever--
With sons for your hearts utterance, ye sue
Not, but like Barry to the British crew,
Ye cry out: "What! we strike our colors? Never!
Fie, shot! fie, Gold! these colors, since they drew
Their first star-breath, are God's, and God's forever."

Ye know the Leopard changes not his spots.
The Prince of Peace, who spake eternal truth,
Confirmed this fact of Nature. He, with ruth
Omniscient, saw afar, the scarlet clots
Of English nature, in profidious plots
For conquest, mangling not alone brave youth
With teeth set, but old age without a tooth,
And Mothers, clutching up their bleeding tots.

Oh, yea, this beast makes his own desert, still;
And Ireland, India and Egypt show
His spots so spread, he is one ghastly glow;
Aye, as your sires saw him from Bunker Hill.
Oh, vain, gold rubs the skin and press shouts, "Lo!
It has not now one spot of threatening ill."

IV

O Daughters of the brave, well ye abjure
The fiend and all his works. Ye know his smiles
Are fire-fly flare at gloaming, lighting miles
Of snake-boughed forests down to swamps, impure
From mind and soul decay; hence are heart-sure
That creed and racial hatreds are his wiles,
For God is Love, and Love draws, reconsiles,
And is the strength that makes our land endure.

O Mothers, as you lift your babes and gaze