p. 2 | THE FLAG by Charles M. Snow

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 30, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 26.

THE FLAG.

By Charles M. Snow

Be he man or boy, he gazes agape At the rippling, ruffling flutter and flap Of the flag that floats far over his head, With its mingling blue and white and red— A star for a State, and a stripe to show How many we were when, long ago, Our nation breathed its first faint prayer, And ventured a flag on the untried air. But now it rides on each breeze that blows, Till the farthest land our history knows; For the tale it tells as it waves on high The wild wind whispers in hurrying by.

’Tis not an idol, nor should it be A thing that calls for the bended knee, Or the forced salute, or a mimic prayer, As it flies, or droops, from the flagstaff there. But what does it tell as it floats on high ’Tween the trembling earth and the peaceful sky? And what does it mean to you and to me, This beautiful, tri-colored flag of the free, Swinging and swaying from spire and dome, From a President’s house to a peasant’s home?

It tells of the struggle, the blood that flowed Down the rugged hill, on the frozen road, When first the feet of the nation trod In ragged rank o’er the reeking sod. It tells of the grief and the scalding tear. For the men who fell, and the boding fear Whose murky wings cleaved the sullen night, While the warriors waged uncertain fight. It tells the tale of the victory won, When the guns were hushed, and the fighting done, And the soldier returned to his peaceful toil To garner the fruits of his blood-stained soil.

But this were slight did the flag not tell Of the liberal laws they framed so well, Of the wondrous code her statesmen drew, To shield the weak, to protect the few, To grant to your neighbor, where’er it flew, The same broad freedom it grants to you. What the words of that code to you declare The flag speaks out on the buoyant air.

It tells you of freedom to worship God, Of a smoother path than the martyr trod. It tells you the fagot no more shall blaze For the man who would walk in his Maker’s ways; That never a rack shall wreak again The wrath of a man on his fellow-men, And that never a vein again shall bleed To pay the price of a broken creed.

It tells us that; and he who stands With a bigot’s chain in his willing hands, To shackle the soul that will not drink At his stagnant well, or deigns to think For himself, and read A higher law than a human creed— He never has guessed the guarantee Which the flag holds out to you and to me; He has never read in its folds unfurled The message it bears to the wide, wide world.

He has yet to learn that in this fair land No creed recruits with a bloody brand, Or a shackle, or gyve, or a clanking chain, Or a surging pulley, or bed of pain. Our flag proclaims it on every breeze That the dark, dark past holds enough of these. And he who dooms to a cell or chain The humblest child of this vast domain For worshiping God with a conscience free From the creeds of men and their bigotry— He has heaped reproach on our martyred dead, And sullied the flag in its every thread.

So speaks the flag, and so let it wave O’er a people free, and strong, and brave— Free from the stroke of a tyrant’s hand, And free to follow their God’s command; Strong in their power to do the right, More than strong to slay where armed men fight; Brave to do what the right demands, And brave to refuse where wrong commands. Let our Constitution forever stand, The boon of the free, the pride of the land; And its ringing words, forever true, Speak out in the red, the white, and the blue.

Oakland, Cal. CHARLES M. SNOW.