Part 35 (1/2)
Come, my brothers, strike your tepees, Call your women, load your ponies!
Let us take the trail to westward, Where the plains are wide and open, Where the bison-herds are gathered Waiting for our feathered arrows.
We will live as lived our fathers, Gleaners of the gifts of nature, Hunters of the unkept cattle, Men whose women run to serve them.
If the toiling bees pursue us, If the white men seek to tame us, We will fight them off and flee them, Break their hives and take their honey, Moving westward, ever westward, There to live as lived our fathers.”
So the red-men drove their ponies, With the tent-poles trailing after, Out along the path to sunset, While along the river valleys Swarmed the wild-bees, the forerunners; And the white men, close behind them, Men of mark from old Missouri, Men of daring from Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Men of many States and races, Bringing wives and children with them, Followed up the wooded valleys, Spread across the rolling prairies, Raising homes and reaping harvests.
Rude the toil that tried their patience, Fierce the fights that proved their courage, Rough the stone and tough the timber Out of which they built their order!
Yet they never failed nor faltered, And the instinct of their swarming Made them one and kept them working, Till their toil was crowned with triumph, And the country of the Tejas Was the fertile land of Texas.
II
THE LONE STAR
Behold a star appearing in the South, A star that s.h.i.+nes apart from other stars, Ruddy and fierce like Mars!
Out of the reeking smoke of cannon's mouth That veils the slaughter of the Alamo, Where heroes face the foe, One man against a score, with blood-choked breath Shouting the watchword, ”Victory or Death--”
Out of the dreadful cloud that settles low On Goliad's plain, Where thrice a hundred prisoners lie slain Beneath the broken word of Mexico-- Out of the fog of factions and of feuds That ever drifts and broods Above the b.l.o.o.d.y path of border war, Leaps the Lone Star!
What light is this that does not dread the dark?
What star is this that fights a stormy way To San Jacinto's field of victory?
It is the fiery spark That burns within the breast Of Anglo-Saxon men, who can not rest Under a tyrant's sway; The upward-leading ray That guides the brave who give their lives away Rather than not be free!
O question not, but honour every name, Travis and Crockett, Bowie, Bonham, Ward, Fannin and King, and all who drew the sword And dared to die for Texan liberty!
Yea, write them all upon the roll of fame, But no less love and equal honour give To those who paid the longer sacrifice-- Austin and Houston, Burnet, Rusk, Lamar And all the stalwart men who dared to live Long years of service to the lonely star.
Great is the worth of such heroic souls: Amid the strenuous turmoil of their deeds, They clearly speak of something that controls The higher breeds of men by higher needs Than bees, content with honey in their hives!
Ah, not enough the narrow lives On profitable toil intent!
And not enough the guerdons of success Garnered in homes of affluent selfishness!
A n.o.ble discontent Cries for a wider scope To use the wider wings of human hope; A vision of the common good Opens the prison-door of solitude; And, once beyond the wall, Breathing the ampler air, The heart becomes aware _That life without a country is not life at all._ A country worthy of a freeman's love; A country worthy of a good man's prayer; A country strong, and just, and brave, and fair,-- A woman's form of beauty throned above The shrine where n.o.ble aspirations meet-- To live for her is great, to die is sweet!
Heirs of the rugged pioneers Who dreamed this dream and made it true, Remember that they dreamed for you.
They did not fear their fate In those tempestuous years, But put their trust in G.o.d, and with keen eyes, Trained in the open air for looking far, They saw the many-million-acred land Won from the desert by their hand, Swiftly among the nations rise,-- Texas a sovereign State, And on her brow a star!
III
THE CONSTELLATION
How strange that the nature of light is a thing beyond our ken, And the flame of the tiniest candle flows from a fountain sealed!
How strange that the meaning of life, in the little lives of men, So often baffles our search with a mystery unrevealed!
But the larger life of man, as it moves in its secular sweep, Is the working out of a Sovereign Will whose ways appear; And the course of the journeying stars on the dark blue boundless deep, Is the place where our science rests in the reign of law most clear.
I would read the story of Texas as if it were written on high; I would look from afar to follow her path through the calms and storms; With a faith in the worldwide sway of the Reason that rules in the sky, And gathers and guides the starry host in cl.u.s.ters and swarms.
When she rose in the pride of her youth, she seemed to be moving apart, As a single star in the South, self-limited, self-possessed; But the law of the constellation was written deep in her heart, And she heard when her sisters called, from the North and the East and the West.