Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/192

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Through lonely space unmeasured

They laid their sentry rings,

Till every brood in eyrie rude

Was shadowed by their wings.

Tecumseh watched the eagles

In summer o'er the plain,

And learned their cry, "If freedom die,

Ye will have lived in vain."

The vision of Tecumseh,

It could not long endure;

He lacked the might to back the right

And make his purpose sure.

Tecumseh and his people

Are gone; they could not hold

Their league for good; their brotherhood

Is but a tale that's told.

The eagles of Tecumseh

Still hold their lofty flight,

And guard their own on outposts lone,

Across the fields of light.

They hold their valiant instinct

And know their right of birth,

They do not cede their pride of breed

For things of little worth.

They see on earth below them,

Where time is but a breath,

Another race brought face to face

With liberty or death.

Above a thousand cities

A new day is unfurled,

And still on high those watchers cry

Their challenge o'er the world.