Soldiers To Pacifists

Katharine Lee Bates 1859 (Falmouth) – 1929 (Wellesley)



NOT ours to clamor shame on you,
Nor fling a bitter blame on you,
Nor brand a cruel name on you,
That evil name of treason,
You who have heard the ivory flutes,
Who float white banners, brave recruits
Of Peace, seeking to pluck her fruits
In bud and blossom season.
A sterner bugle calls to us;
More direful duty falls to us;
God grants no garden-walls to us
Till the scarred waste be delivered
From dragon passions that destroy
All sanctitudes of faith and joy;
We, too, are on divine employ;
By sword shall sword be shivered.
Cherish your bud, star-eyed of bloom,
Dawn-flower of hope, belied of gloom,
While, surges of the tide of doom,
The gathering nations thunder
Against a red, colossal throne;
Cherish it, that the seed be sown
At last even where that monstrous stone
Crushes life's roots asunder.
Follow your flutes the fairy way;
Wing-sandaled, climb the airy way,
The wonderful, unwary way,
Too lovely for derision;
While we, your comrades at the goal,
Step to the drum-beat and unroll
The flag of Freedom, every soul
Obedient to its vision.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

56 sec read
60

Quick analysis:

Scheme AAABCCCBDDDEFFFEGGGHIIIHJJJBKKKB
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,028
Words 188
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 32

Katharine Lee Bates

Katharine Lee Bates is remembered as the author of the words to the anthem America the Beautiful Bates was born in Falmouth Massachusetts and lived as an adult on Centre Street in Newton Massachusetts An historic plaque marks the site of her home The daughter of a Congregational pastor she graduated from Wellesley College in 1880 and for many years was a professor of English literature at Wellesley While teaching there she was elected a member of the newly formed Pi Gamma Mu honor society for the social sciences because of her interest in history and politics for which she also studied She lived at Wellesley with Katharine Coman who herself was a history and political economy teacher and founder of the Wellesley College Economics department The pair lived together for twenty-five years until Comans death in 1915 It is debated if this relationship was an intimate lesbian relationship as different sources maintain or a platonic relationship called sometimes Boston marriages as the local historical society of her birthplace maintain more…

All Katharine Lee Bates poems | Katharine Lee Bates Books

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