Echoes of Democracy (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE BROKEN BOW I watched the sun spread out its golden hands And scatter flakes of emerald on the bosom of the clouds, And hang his scarlet draperies aloft Upon the rosy pinions of their brightening hues Thus curtaining off the world in which he has en- throned Dew sceptered sleep and soft-crowned, unrobed rest, From that celestial realm, which still he sweeps With undimmed radiance of eternal eyes. I saw his flaming head with glowing locks Lean on the sapphire pillars, shooting forth From gentle flashing of the mountain's lily brow, And wrapping o'er his form the folds of clouds Breathes forth a poppied incense on the darkening world And like an actor, showered with rosy wreathes Retires serenely from his boundless stage. Upon the rosy bosom of the clouds, I see the fires of our race aglow, Not passion, puffing with hot nostrils wide, Nor beaming hope with lustrous eyes aflame, But drops of life blood oozing from our weakening veins Which throbbing with vitality once laughed To see the terror-stricken usurper Flee from the pathway of our arrow's deadly flight. And in the red rays of the mellowing sun I see our fainting spirit pine away And gasp for calm revivifying airs Breathed from the golden valleys of fair hunting grounds. No more will noonday suns, look on our noon of life With fresh hope beaming from his undiminished ray, With vigor brimming o'er the cup of unaccomplished deeds And faith with beckoning hand wave on Exulting spirits to valorous deeds. The noonday of our life is past and now We languish ever in the sunset's passive maze Through which the luring hand of distant shades Reach forth with gestures of suspended doom. No more the languid moon rubs dew drops from his eyes When blinded by the flood of heaven'...