Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LITANY OF NATIONS, by WILLIAM GRIFFITH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LITANY OF NATIONS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Aeons of old were wandering down the seas
Last Line: What have we squandered?
Subject(s): Ambition; Europe; God; History; Nations; Prophecy & Prophets; War; Historians


GREECE

Aeons of old were wandering down the seas,
When Homer sang at Chios — and the sweet
Tranquillity of marching silences
Was broken at my feet.

Great dawns have shown the way
When we have wandered.
God, in the battle sway,
What have we squandered?

ITALY

Avid and Roman born in soul and sense,
Master of all else but myself was I,
When, bound by silken cords of indolence,
I saw the world go by.

FRANCE

Ravaging, roystering and repenting — save
In story and the regions of romance,
Rises the moon on whom more mad and brave,
Or beautiful than France?

GERMANY

Once German arms and German armies hurled
Thunders on Rome. Than mine no readier hand
Would wake the violin and woo the world,
Were it a fairyland.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY

Mine is a house divided but upheld
By the sheer force of many hemming powers.
Ages, like forests, have been hewn and felled
To build my crumbling towers.

RUSSIA

Gray winters flourish and old empires fail;
And still the starry watchmen sally forth
As wardens, with me, of the frozen grail
And ramparts of the north.

BALKAN STATES

Stabbing the skies for stars and air in which
To bask awhile and breathe — shall we remain
Simply the little brothers of the rich?
God! have we fought in vain?

SPAIN

Strong was my soul in war and wise in peace.
On whom else was the Moslem vanguard hurled?
O but for me had any Genoese
Sailed and brought back a world?

SWITZERLAND

High noons and sunsets pass while I repeat
The world-old secret of the endless quest;
And with the nations ageing at my feet,
I overlook the west.

GREAT BRITAIN

Flecking the seas where war and tempest brew,
And biding till the gonfalons are furled,
My British sails have dared and driven through
Thunders that shook the world.

AMERICA

Westward the tide of empire ebbs and flows:
And westward where the new-world torches rise
And rout the night, the Great Day dawning glows
And kindles in my eyes.

JAPAN

Amid the warring peoples I that slept
And dreamt of wide dominion — confident,
Amoitious, urging, conquering — have stept
Out from the orient.

CHINA

Glory and power for ages had been mine,
Until upon me fell a sudden night,
Such as makes beacon-star republics shine:
And my eyes saw the light.

TURKEY

In infidel debate on whence and why,
They hiss my God, and know not whether hale
And wise, or worn and withering am I,
Behind the crimson veil.

Great dawns have shown the way
When we have wandered.
God, in the battle sway,
What have we squandered?





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