Poems of the English Race

[The scene of this poem is set at the United States immigrant station in New York harbor. Compare the poetic argument for a liberal attitude toward the immigrant class, with that expressed in Aldrich's poem, page 366.]

At the gate of the West I stand,
On the isle where the nations throng.
We call them "scum o' the earth";
Stay, are we doing you wrong,
Young fellow from Socrates' land?-
You, like a Hermes so lissome and strong
Fresh from the master Praxiteles' hand?
So you're of Spartan birth?

Descended, perhaps, from one of the band

Deathless in story and song

Who combed their long hair at Thermopyla's pass?

Ah, I forget the straits, alas! More tragic than theirs, more compassionworth,

That have doomed you to march in our "immigrant class"

Where you're nothing but "scum o' the earth."

I Titans. Who dared to war against the ancient gods.

2 Icarian wings. Icarus made wings for himself, but when he flew too near the sun, the wax that held them melted, and he fell into the sea.

When a world from the wave began to

rise.

You're merely a butt for our mirth. You're a "sheeny" and therefore despised

And rejected as "scum o' the earth."

Countrymen, bend and invoke
Mercy for us blasphemers,

For that we spat on this marvellous folk,
Nations of darers and dreamers,
Scions of singers and seers,

Our peers, and more than our peers.
"Rabble and refuse" we name them,
And "scum o' the earth," to shame them.
Mercy for us of the few, young years,
Of the culture so callow and crude,
Of the hands so grasping and rude,
The lips so ready for sneers

At the sons of our ancient more-thanpeers.

Mercy for us who dare despise

Men in whose loins our Homer lies; Mothers of men who shall bring to us The glory of Titian, the grandeur of Huss ;3

THE MERRY-GO-ROUND

MARGARET L. WOODS

[From a long poem called "Marlborough Fair."]

Merry-go-round is a-turning, turning! What will you mount upon, where will you ride?

Merry-go-round is a-turning!
Where the gilded chariots glide
Merry-go-round is a-calling, calling,
Where the galloping horses arch in pride
Their elegant necks with manes a-flowing
And scarlet nostrils bravely glowing,
The dapple and white, the black and the
bay.

The organ is high over every sound,
You can hear it calling a mile away,
It is whirling its galloping tune around
While the merry-go-round is turning,
turning!

Whither away goes the Merry-go-round,
Busily whirling, dizzily whirling?
Say, on its narrow circle of ground,
Fast or slow though it go, it abides,
And the company giddily, giddily glides.
Dabs of color, red country faces,

A crimson feather, a grass-green sash, 20
The white of a dress or a bonnet flash,
Appear, disappear, and appear again,
Like beads on a rapid revolving chain
That is tense with the force of its own
motion,

Busily whirling, dizzily whirling.

Once made in Nazareth,
Not all the pearls in all the sea,
Nor crowns of kings, or kings to be
As long as men have breath,
Could buy that thing of wood he made-
The Lord of Lords who learned a trade.

Yes, but his hammer still is shown
By honest hands that toil,
And round his table men sit down,
And all are equals, with a crown
No gold nor pearls can soil.
The shop at Nazareth was bare,
But Brotherhood was builded there.
(1911)

THE MOTHER

KATHARINE TYNAN

Busily whirling, dizzily whirling,

They are swift on the tide, they are sailing the wind,

1 Djinn. A Mohammedan spirit, made of fire.

There is no height, no depth, that could set us apart

Body of mine and soul of mine, heart of my heart.