Suggested by the Assaults made on the Negro Soldiers as they passed through the south on their way to and from our war with Spain. <br /> <br />How I love my country you have heard, <br />And I would you were noble and free <br />In spirit and deed, as in word, <br />And your boasted humanity. <br />I love you, my country, I do, - <br />Here's a heart, a soul that is thine, <br />Pregnant with devotion for you, <br />And blind to your faults as to mine. <br /> <br /> <br />The standard of morals is high; <br />When fixed by my brother for me, <br />It goes towering up to the sky <br />With a dazzling purity. <br />For a bench he sits on a skull, <br />And is a judge austere and stern, <br />With whom my demurrers are null, <br />And my pleadings, though just, are spurned. <br /> <br /> <br />I've carried your flag to the front <br />Through pestilence, battles and storms; <br />Of the carnage of war took the blunt, <br />Obeyed your command, 'Carry arms!' <br />And gone with you down to the death, <br />With the thorns of caste on my head; <br />Defended your home and your hearth, <br />And wept o'er the bier of your dead. <br /> <br /> <br />As the smoke of the fight goes by, <br />And the bugle calls to repose, <br />By my countryman's hands I die, <br />As well as by the hands of its foes; <br />Yet I love you, my country, I do, <br />Here's a heart, a soul that is thine, <br />Pregnant with devotion for you, <br />And blind to your faults as to mine.<br /><br />Samuel Alfred Beadle<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lines-50/
