FullReads

II

THE LONE STAR

Behold a star appearing in the South,
A star that shines 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 bloody 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 noble 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 noble 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 God, 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 clusters and swarms.