Poems (Blake)/The Kearsarge

by Mary Elizabeth Blake

THE KEARSARGE.

We welcome back the war-worn feet
 That trod the Southern plain;
Have we no sign of praise to greet
 Their brothers of the main?
No heart-warm word, no earnest way,
 To show the thought that thrills
When the old Kearsarge rests to-day
 Beneath New England's hills?

Yes! by our faith in manly deeds
 Done thus in noble guise,
The hands that fill our nation's needs
 Are sacred to our eyes:
The hands that raised our Nation's stars
 Above the solemn sea,
And held them, spite of wounds and scars,
 Unconquered, stainless, free!

O moment bright with honest light,
 And rich with honest grace,
When thus the New World held her right
 Before the Old World's face;
Well might the startled echoes wake
 The British lion's trance,
And on their silken standards shake
 The fleur-de-lis of France.

We are too late to catch the first
 Swift glory as it came,
While yet the notes of triumph burst
 From out the lips of Fame:
But not too late to leave our meed
 Of honor's fadeless flowers,
And hail with welcome and God-speed
 These sailor-boys of ours.

O stalwarth arms and loyal hearts
 A Nation holds your name!
The seasons wane, the year departs,
 There is no death for Fame!
Her hands will hold the scroll sublime
 While Freedom's self shall last,
Undimmed, untouched, by change or time,
 Immortal as our past!