"freemen" poems
Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat—
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags—were they purple, his heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us,—they watch from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,
He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!
We shall march prospering,—not through his presence;
Songs may inspirit us,—not from his lyre;
Deeds will be done,—while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,
One more triumph for devils and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!
Life’s night begins: let him never come back to us!
There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,
Forced praise on our part—the glimmer of twilight,
Never glad confident morning again!
Best fight on well, for we taught him—strike gallantly,
Menace our heart ere we pierce through his own;
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!
2.3k
This world is but a graveyard
Of kings and kingdoms
Of philosophers and freemen
Of sacrilegious arrogance
For we live in a vast wasteland
Of prospectors and merchants
Only a few steps from oasis
Battling for a distant mirage
Humans are mere beasts
Like hyenas and lionesses
Fighting for supremacy
In this endless ephemerality
iamthe_avatar ©2016
Nov 3, 2016
Nov 3, 2016 at 6:45 AM UTC
The year of Eighteen Sixty Five
Lincoln, shot and dead
The war was all but over
Destruction in it's stead
Blue and Grey divided
A nation great and strong
Was there ever a true winner?
So much of this was wrong
Brothers against brothers
Tearing families apart
It was a war with different issues
At Fort Sumter did it start
Slaves were not the forefront
When the war became a war
It was a war to stop secession
Then it became so much more
Johnny Reb comes marching home
Not the home that he once knew
It was now a state of new rebuilding
There was no more Grey, just Blue
Did it truly make the country
Unified under one flag?
Or did it become so much more splintered
Under a torn and tattered rag?
A President was murdered
But, the war, continued on
The ties that once did bind them
Were now just truly gone
The beauty of the country
Burned on Shermans' seaward trek
Left the Southern states demolished
And the plantations, just a wreck
The slaves were granted freedom
Through Emancipation at the end
But, in the south, it never happened
The landowners had to bend
Although the war was over
Slaves were free men after all
But, with nowhere left to go to
It was like a game without a ball
Many stayed and cropshared
Worked the same land as before
Now, they worked the land as freemen
Nothing less, and nothing more
Brothers still divided
Blue and Grey deep in their souls
Almost eight score years have passed
And the nation is still not whole
Grant and Lee at Appomatox
Ended the war and sent men on their way
But, it took days for the message to be heard and
Many more died in those days
Three Quarters of a Million
Lost their lives, in this young nation
One thing never altered
The place of a man's station
It split apart the country
Broke it down, to build anew
But, did it really matter
Now, with Johnny Reb in Blue?
Jan 18, 2013
Jan 18, 2013 at 8:33 PM UTC
You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease,
Within this region I subsist,
Whose spirits falter in the mist,
And languish for the purple seas.
It is the land that freemen till,
That sober-suited Freedom chose,
The land, where girt with friends or foes
A man may speak the thing he will;
A land of settled government,
A land of just and old renown,
Where Freedom slowly broadens down
From precedent to precedent:
Where faction seldom gathers head,
But by degrees to fullness wrought,
The strength of some diffusive thought
Should banded unions persecute
Opinion, and induce a time
When single thought is civil crime,
And individual freedom mute;
Tho' Power should make from land to land
The name of Britain trebly great--
Tho' every channel of the State
Should fill and choke with golden sand--
Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth,
Wild wind! I seek a warmer sky,
And I will see before I die
The palms and temples of the South.
1.5k
Roman Virgil, thou that singest
Ilion's lofty temples robed in fire,
Ilion falling, Rome arising,
wars, and filial faith, and Dido's pyre;
Landscape-lover, lord of language
more than he that sang the "Works and Days,"
All the chosen coin of fancy
flashing out from many a golden phrase;
Thou that singest wheat and woodland,
tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd;
All the charm of all the Muses
often flowering in a lonely word;
Poet of the happy Tityrus
piping underneath his beechen bowers;
Poet of the poet-satyr
whom the laughing shepherd bound with flowers;
Chanter of the Pollio, glorying
in the blissful years again to be,
Summers of the snakeless meadow,
unlaborious earth and oarless sea;
Thou that seest Universal
Nature moved by Universal Mind;
Thou majestic in thy sadness
at the doubtful doom of human kind;
Light among the vanish'd ages;
star that gildest yet this phantom shore;
Golden branch amid the shadows,
kings and realms that pass to rise no more;
Now thy Forum roars no longer,
fallen every purple Caesar's dome--
Tho' thine ocean-roll of rhythm
sound forever of Imperial Rome--
Now the Rome of slaves hath perish'd,
and the Rome of freemen holds her place,
I, from out the Northern Island
sunder'd once from all the human race,
I salute thee, Mantovano,
I that loved thee since my day began,
Wielder of the stateliest measure
ever moulded by the lips of man.
1.2k
I walk alone
For the sake of everyone I love and know
For the blush of unspoiled fruit
So we can walk out into the sun
Freemen and not slaves
So we can get out from under the thumb
Of oppressors who seek to keep us down,
For the Americas
My Americans
For her siblings, allies of dear note to
Fair Lady Columbia
For all that share in the rays of the cosmos
My friends, nature is so beautiful
And once was so full, in this world
Of all the things gone extinct
It is less they do not control
Remember, you too are an animal
Mar 5, 2024
Mar 5, 2024 at 9:09 PM UTC
( Vision Of freemen )
going
( away from Slavery )
going home •
WE
?
Are we seeking Righteousness ?
We talk of our *******
So
RELIGIOUSLY !
//
//
out across the plains !
Headin for a New AMERICA
Thru sacred Indian Lands
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN !
( here we come )
••
Wagon Train
( the trail
Starts where e'er you are )
All real people are there
WELL YOU KNOW WE MUST GO HOME
( and so we are )
GOING HOME
//
Yes we are
Seeking Righteousness
// Oh yes
Yes yes
We're seeking Righteousness
Mar 30, 2015
Mar 30, 2015 at 10:33 PM UTC
Down there in the valley, where the lunatics play parts, until the cinema doors open and the latest movie starts, there's a Mexican with gold bars that are strapped into his trousers,
and down among the lunatics are the freemen, rebel rousers, it gets hard to make their features out as the silver screen lights eerily ,with blinkers sat across his eyes he stands alone and wearily,
calls to the main assembly, 'I'm waiting for you and I'm here' but no one seems to notice him,
as Robert Redford rides a bike, he bites into a burrito, no sense in wasting good food and there's nowhere else that he can go, the gold bars start to melt and yet he's never once felt so alone, he wonders what is wife is at when he's so far away from home.
The lunatics are filing through the exit doors and who's to say, if what is madness here and now is going to be madness on another day.
The Mexican prepares a feast but no one comes except for me but
he's not in the least perturbed,
he did it once before and no one came then, so it's no surprise ,when looking in his eyes I see a medal made of bronze for me, a runner up in history, no golden ingots hidden there,
just questions and I wonder why
he came.
Jan 10, 2015
Jan 10, 2015 at 10:16 AM UTC
Our days are full of surprise, as all the happy springs are overflowing from their amazing fingers. I am not water, and I cannot sleep in the hearts of these springs, but the freemen made houses of love for birds that know nothing but the morning songs. They are smooth creatures, and there is only light in their hearts so they are always shining and from their journeys, the beginnings have begun. Their hands are silver and you can see their golden chants lying safely on our land where the lovebirds stand under our smiling trees and give me an unusual kiss.
Aug 2, 2019
Aug 2, 2019 at 9:27 PM UTC
They tell you to eat your wheaties and respect the kings and queens you only see on t.v. or in the bed with teenies. While these pigs devour our flesh their eating. We starve and march to the drumbs their beating. We tried to find meaning through a church preaching freedoms. But While they built warships, we were chasing imaginary demons, out of lands to this day we still think were freeing. Instead of breaking bread to figure out the reasons. We build walls like the rest of the world aint humans. Are we looking through the lens, because i cant seem to find any truemen. This aint a movie, I know what moves me, and it will never be pre-tend. I care not what your creed defines, your needs are mine. And unlees we stand together we'll never be freemen. Believe me now, dont believe me when, theres nothing left to believe in man.
The prison is your misery, unless your adolescents is at the hands of bill and hillary. The only statute we have is a lady burning liberty. The corruptions is tyranny. So, when they try to analyze me its mirroring. Liquidity. The reflections on the waters is not you literally. But your vehicles effects across this plain are rippling consistently. Deliberately conditions are visibly indignity towards our self esteem. We all live behind a screen invisibly, you dont see the Brilliancy we recieved after eve's temptation of the tree. Saturns sycle grazed scicily. So *** was sold openly in the streets. His story secretly on repeat. Shiva, kundalini, the eye opening. Idiocracy. Love whats at your feet. Gia gave you everything you need. One day you will be free. This is all a very complex dream. oxygen needs blood to stream. All Hues are beautiful under the rays the sunlight beams
Sep 16, 2019
Sep 16, 2019 at 2:30 PM UTC