Page:Fifes and Drums, Poems of America at War, Vigilantes, 1917.djvu/72

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

THE GERMAN-AMERICAN

Honor to him whose very blood remembers
    The old, enchanted dream-song of the Rhine,
    Although his house of life is fair with shine
Of fires new-kindled on the buried embers;

Whose heart is wistful for the flowers he tended
    Beside his mother, for the carven gnome
    And climbing bear and cuckoo-clock of home,
For the whispering forest path two lovers wended;

Who none the less, still strange in speech and manner,
    With our young Freedom keeps his plighted faith,
    Sides with his children's hope against the wraith
Of his own childhood, hails the Starry Banner

66