The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1882-06-23

The buried ruins 'of dead empires seek,
of Indian, Syrian, Persian, Roman, Greek
From shattered capital and frieZe upraise
| The stately structure of their golden days
Their laws occult their priests and prophets
| ask,
Their altars search, their oracles unmask,
| Their parable from birth to burial see,
The acorn germ, the growth, the dense
| leafed tree,
A world of RANT life; the sudden day
When like new strange glory shone decay,
| A golden glow amid the green the change
From branch to branch at life's receding
range,
TIL nothing stands of towering strength and
| pride
Save naked trunk and arms whose veins are
dried,
And these, too, crumble till no sign remain
To mark its place upon thewind-swept plain.
| Why died the empires? Like the forest trees
1 Did nature doom them or did slow disease
| Assail their roots and poison all their springs
! The old-time story answers mobiles, kings,
| Have made and been the State, their names
| alone
Its history holds; its wealth, its wars, their
| own.
Their wanton will could raise, enrich, con-
demn;
| The toiling millions lived and died for them.
Their fortunes rose in conquest, fell in guilt !;
The people never owned them, never built.
Those olden times how many words are
spent
In weak regret and shallow argument
To prove them wiser, happier than our own
The Oldest moment that the world has
Is passing now. Those vaunted times were
Their wisdom from unlettered peasants
Their laws from mobiles arrogant and rude:
Their Justice force, their whole achievement
crude.
With men the old are wise why change the
When nations speak, and send the old to
SCHOOL,
Respect the past for all the good it knew:
Give noble lives and struggling truths their
due
But ask. what freedom knew the common
Who served and bled and won the victories
then ?
The leaders are immortal, but the hordes
They led to death were simply human
swords,
Unknowing what they fought for, why they
fell.
What change has come? ? Imperial Europe
tell!
Deaths warders cry from twenty centuries
Plataa's field the word of PIevra speaks:
The martial draft still wastes the peasant
FARMS
A dozen kings, five million men in arms;
The earth mapped out estate like, hedged
In neighboring schools the children bred to
feel
Unnatural hate, disjoined in speech and
creed
The forges roaring for the armies need;
The cities buIded by the people lined
With scowlng forts and roadways under
mined;
At every Fashioned frontier, evey state,
Suspicion, sworded, standing by the gate
But turn our eyes from those oppressive
lands
Behold, one country all defenceIess stands,
One nation-continent, from East to West.
With riches heaped upon her bounteous
breast;
Her mines, her marts, her skill of hand and
brain,
That bring Aladdin's dreams to light again
Where sleep the conquerors? Here is chance
Such unmatched fields, such endless, Thought
Vain dream of olden time The robber
That swept its will is overmatched at length,
Here. not with swords but smiles the people
greet
The foreign spy in haEbor granaTy, street;
Here towns uDguarded lie, for here alone
Nor caste, nor king, nor privilege is known.
For home the farmer ploughs, the miner
delves,
A land of toiIers, toiling for themselves;
Whose open streets, reach out to fertile
felGs;
Whose roads are shaken by no armies tread;
Whose only ca mps are cities of the dead
Go stand at Arlington, the graves among:
No ramparts, cannOns there, no banners
hung,
No threat above the Capital no blare
To warn the senators the guns are there.
But never yet was city fortified
Like that sad height above Potomac's tide;
There never yet was eloquence in speech
Like those ten thousand stones, name on
each;
No guards e'er pressed such claim on court
or king
As these Pretorans to our Senate bring;
The Army OF Potomac never lay
So full of strength as in its camp to-day
On fatal Cheronea's field the Greeks
a lion raiSed.-a sOmbeT tomb that speaks
No word, no name, an emblem OF tile pride
OF those who ruled the insect host that died.
But by her soldiers graves Columbia proves
How fast toward morn the night of manhood
moves
Those low white lines at Gettysburg remain,
The sacred record of her humblest slain,
Where children's children in their time will
come
To view With pride their heroe-father's tomb,
While down the ages runs the patriot line
Till rich tradition makes each tomb a shrine.
Our standing army these. with spectre
glalNeS,
Our fortressed towns their battle-ordered
graves.
Here Sleep our valiant, sown like dragons
teeth
Here newborn sons renew the pious wreath:
Here proud Columbia bends, with tear-stirred
mouth,
To kiss their biood-seal, binding North and
South,
Two cIasping hands upOa the knot they tied
When Union lived and human Slavery died.
Who doubt our strength or measure it with
those
Whose armed millions wait for coming foes.
They Judge by royal standards, that depend
On hiTeHng hands to threaten or defend,
That keep their waT-dOgs chained in time of
peace,
And dread a foe scarce less than their re-
lease.
Who hunt wild beasts with cheetahs, fierceIy
tame,
Must watch their hounds as well as fear their
game.
Around our veterans hung no dread or doubt
When thrice million men were mustered
out.
As scattered seed in new-ploughed land, or
flakes
OF Spring time snow that fall in smiling
lakes
Our war-born soldiers sank into the sea
OF peaceful life and fruitful energy.
No sign remained of that vast army, save
In held and street new wOrkmen, brOnzed
and grave
Some whiting teamsters still in army vest
some quiet citizens with medalled breast.
SO died the hatred of our brother feud;
Ihe conflict Ger, the triumph was subdued
What victor king e'er spared the yanouished
foe ?
How much Of mercy did strong Prussia show