A Holy Nation

Let Liberty run onward with the years, And circle with the seasons; let her break The tyrant’s harshness, the oppressor’s spears; Bring ripened recompenses that shall make Supreme amends for sorrow’s long arrears; Drop holy benison on hearts that ache; Put clearer radiance into human eyes, And set the glad earth singing to the skies. Clean natures coin pure statutes. Let us cleanse The hearts that beat within us; let us mow Clear to the roots our falseness and pretence, Tread down our rank ambitions, overthrow Our braggart moods of puffed self-consequence, Plough up our hideous thistles which do grow Faster than maize in May time, and strike dead The base infections our low greeds have bred.

Collection: 
English
Richard Realf
Sub Title: 
II. Freedom

More from Poet

  • A Holy Nation

    Let Liberty run onward with the years, And circle with the seasons; let her break The tyrant’s harshness, the oppressor’s spears; Bring ripened recompenses that shall make Supreme amends for sorrow’s long arrears; Drop holy benison on hearts that ache; Put clearer radiance into human eyes, And...

  • Indirection

    Fair are the flowers and the children, but their subtle suggestion is fairer; Rare is the roseburst of dawn, but the secret that clasps it is rarer; Sweet the exultance of song, but the strain that precedes it is sweeter; And never was poem yet writ, but the meaning outmastered the metre. Never...

  • An Old Man's Idyl

    By the waters of Life we sat together, Hand in hand in the golden days Of the beautiful early summer weather, When skies were purple and breath was praise, When the heart kept tune to the carol of birds, And the birds kept tune to the songs which ran Through shimmer of flowers on grassy...

  • The Word

    O earth! thou hast not any wind that blows Which is not music; every weed of thine Pressed rightly flows in aromatic wine; And every humble hedgerow flower that grows, And every little brown bird that doth sing, Hath something greater than itself, and bears A living Word to every living thing,...

  • Indirection

    Fair are the flowers and the children, but their subtle suggestion is fairer; Rare is the roseburst of dawn, but the secret that clasps it is rarer; Sweet the exultance of song, but the strain that precedes it is sweeter; And never was poem yet writ, but the meaning outmastered the metre. Never...