THE
ROUGH RIDER
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THERE
lift the peaks of purple,
Where dip the dusty trails,
Where gleaming, teeming cities
Lie linked by shining rails,
By shadow-haunted camp-fire,
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Beneath
the great white dome,
In saddle and in council
Intrepid and at home,
Who is the hardy figure
Of virile fighting strain,
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With
valor and conviction
In heart, and hand, and brain?
Sprung from our old ideals
To serve our later needs,
He is the modern Roundhead,
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| The
man who rides and reads.
No pomp of braid and feathers,
No flash of burnished gear,
He wears the plainsman’s outfit
Sufficient and severe.
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With
no imperial chevron
Upon his khaki sleeve,
He thinks by no made doctrine,
He speaks by no man’s leave.
The breed and creed and schooling
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Of Harvard
and the plains,
Six hundred years of fighting
For freedom in his veins,
Let no one think to wheedle,
To buy, coerce, nor cheat,
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The
man who loves the open,
The man who knows the street.
He rides not for vain glory,
He fights not for low gain,
But that the range of freedom
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Unravaged
shall remain.
As plain as Bible language
And open as the day,
He challenges injustice,
And bids corruption stay.
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Take up, who will, the challenge;
Stand pat on graft and greed;
Grow sleek on others’ labor,
Surfeit on others’ need;
Let paid and bloodless tricksters
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Devise
a legal way
Our common right and justice
"To sell, deny, delay."
Not yesterday nor lightly
We came to know that breed;
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Our
quarrel with that cunning
Is old as Runnymede.
We saw enfranchised insult
Deploy in kingly line,
When broke our sullen fury
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| On Rupert
of the Rhine.
At Newbury and Worcester,
Edgehill and Marston Moor,
We got the stubborn courage
To dare and to endure.
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From
Ireton and Cromwell
We learned the sword and rein;
Free speech by truth made fearless,
From Hampden, Pym, and Vane.
A thousand years in peril,
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By privilege
oppressed,
With loss beyond requital,
Unflinching in our quest,
We sought and bought our freedom
And bore it oversea;
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To keep
it still unblighted,
We rode with Grant and Lee.
Now, masking raid and rapine
In debonair disguise,
The foe we thought defeated
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Deludes
our careless eyes,
Entrenched in law and largess
And the vested wrong of things,
Cloaking a fouler treason
Than any faithless king’s.
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He takes our life for wages,
He holds our land for rent,
He sweats our little children
To swell his cent per cent;
With secret grip and levy
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On every
crumb we eat,
He drives our sons to thieving,
Our daughters to the street.
He lightly sells his honor,
He boldly shames our pride,
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And
makes our cause a scandal
For the nations to deride.
So crafty, yet so craven!
One whisper through the mart
Can send him to his coffers
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| With
panic in his heart.
With no such feeble rancor
As envy moves to hate,
No ignorant detraction
Of goodly things and great,
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But
with the wrath unbridled
Of patriots betrayed,—
Of workers duped by brokers,
Of brothers unafraid,—
Against the grim defenses
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Where
might and murrain hide,
Unswerving to the issue
Loose-reined and rough we ride
Full tardily, to rescue
Our heritage from wrong,
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And
stablish it on manhood,
A thousand times more strong;
Comes now the fearless Message,
The leader, and the time
For every man to muster
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For
honor or for crime.
Who would not ride beside him
Into the toughest fight—
For freedom, the republic,
And everlasting right!
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