Shall I say, "My son, you're branded in this country's pageantry, By strange subtleties you're tethered, and no forum sets you free?" Shall I mark the young lights fading through your soul-enchannelled eye, As the dusky pall of shadows screen the highway of your sky? Or shall I, with love prophetic, bid you dauntlessly arise, Spurn the handicap that clogs you, taking what the world denies, Bid you storm the sullen fortress wrought by prejudice and wrong With a faith that shall not falter, in your heart and on your tongue! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ABYSS by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS CARMEN BELLICOSUM by GUY HUMPHREYS MCMASTER A WINTER WISH by ROBERT HINCKLEY MESSINGER SOJOURN IN THE WHALE by MARIANNE MOORE SONG: THE STRICKEN DEER by THOMAS MOORE STRANGE MEETING by WILFRED OWEN SONNET: 9 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE |