Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ELLIS ISLAND, by PERCY STICKNEY GRANT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ELLIS ISLAND, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: How can we turn back to the ancient world
Last Line: By future hordes who seek high destiny.
Subject(s): Ellis Island, New York Harbor; United States - Immigration & Emigtration


How can we turn back to the ancient world,
With all its wealth of wisdom, beauty, soul,
Or take the time to listen to its talk;
Descend the tomb's steps to behold the past,
And grope forgetful in another age, --
Exiles ourselves from this tumultuous scene, --
Instead of hastening to our sunlit hills?
Time! time! O give me thy firm hand;
Pluck not away thy strength till I am strong,
Until my voice shall cry to all the world,
The truth of men's new hope, new power, new love:
That man was made not for these miseries
In which the past and present cumber him:
War's brutal harvesting of all fond hopes,
Which sweeps away the smiling grain around
The little home, and withers up the heart;
Which turns to snarling brutes God's likeness in the flesh;
Tears down the soul built up by household love,
Mashes men's bodies to manure their fields.
I would not see the suns of other climes,
Nor peer for pleasure in the ancient world,
While this procession vast, of men alive,
Gifted and awed by life, pours past my door.
Whither, O whither, are these millions bent?
I know not though I see their partial goal, --
A noble destiny of love-linked lives.
Take, take me to your eager company,
To share your inextinguishable hope
Of heavens on earth, of freedom, joy and love.
O let me link my destiny to yours!
Pluck up my life from sterile roots and soil;
Transplant it to your deep fertility,
Within the hearts and lives of such as ye.
I will not stop, no, not if Homer call,
Or Sophocles or Caesar, aye for Dante, no!
Though Shakespeare gaze at me with Prospero's eyes,
I will not turn for hosts of sceptered kings
Who knew the pride of place far separate
From humble struggle for God's daily bread.
Their time was theirs and all the world
They could compact within their minds array.
Our time is ours. But how brief it is
And pregnant with the fate of centuries!
My eyes shall only see your holy hope,
Your far crusade to win no tomb, but homes.
Your vast adventure seeks to win no palm
Or pardon for its sins, like old crusades;
Or heavens enskied beyond the bounds of flesh,
But human homes and human happiness.
For you the Past has failed, --
Asia, Africa and Europe failed,
And all great states, --
France, England, Germany and their allies.
All, all have failed to give to you a home,
Content and honor, growth and founded hopes;
Their artists, generals, statesmen left your poor, --
Gave nothing you would stay for, no allure.
You turned your back on all they showed and asked
A wilderness in which to be yourself;
A man, free from servility and free
Alike from fear of men and fear of gods;
Free footed, free of thought and free to find
The depths in soul and nature's unguessed power.
You come as awful judges of our ways;
To see if we still keep our primal gift;
Able to give to each, who knocks, his need
Of larger life, and world-wise ministry.
Or, if we dull his mind, steal labor and despise
The clasped hands of all well-wishing men,
Until we, too, are left like sinking ships
By future hordes who seek high destiny.





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