{"id":41740,"date":"2015-07-03T22:56:51","date_gmt":"2015-07-04T03:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=41740"},"modified":"2021-06-03T09:17:41","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T14:17:41","slug":"fourth-of-july-manvotional-the-coming-american","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/character\/manhood\/fourth-of-july-manvotional-the-coming-american\/","title":{"rendered":"Fourth of July Manvotional: The Coming American"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Air

For 39 years, the most famous line from this poem adorned an arch at the base of a ramp where cadets form to march at the USAF Academy. It was removed in 2003.<\/p><\/div>\n

“The Coming American”<\/strong>
\nFrom Whiffs from Wild Meadows<\/em><\/strong>
\nBy Sam Walter Foss<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Read at Mr. Henry C. Bowen’s Annual Fourth of July Celebration, at Roseland Park, Woodstock, Conn., July 4, 1894.]<\/em><\/p>\n

On the Fourth of July we all love to dilate
\nWith the thought that we are inexpressibly great;
\nThat we’re all legatees of fate’s fairest bequest,
\nAnd that destiny’s egg has been laid in our nest;
\nThat we’ve climbed up the sides, up the roof, and sublime
\nWe stand on the top of the ridge-pole of time.
\nThe horizon’s too narrow to limit our stride,
\nAnd infinite space is too small for our pride;
\nHeaven’s vault is too small our hosannas to ring,
\nAnd the zenith too low for our gestures to swing;
\nOur heads are too tall for the low-studded sky,
\nAnd we call for “more room!” on the Fourth of July.<\/p>\n

‘Tis a day you expect that the orthodox bard
\nHis poetical bunting will flaunt by the yard;
\n‘Tis a time you expect his tumultuous Muse
\nTo explode at the end of a sky-rocket fuse.
\nStill I venture to tempt the bold heretic’s curse,
\nAnd tremblingly give my unorthodox verse.<\/p>\n

For aren’t we too old to be pleased, like the boys,
\nWith glory and gunpowder, thunder and noise?
\nToo old to sit down in unruffled sedateness,
\nAnd muse on our grand and ineffable greatness?
\nThe loud days of our national boyhood are over,
\nThe barefooted freedom of dew and of clover;
\nAnd let us throw off, with the boy’s outworn jacket,
\nThe old day of rollic and revel and racket.
\nThose days are now passed; they will not come again
\nWe are men. Let us grapple the problems of men.<\/p>\n

And as men, may we not, on the Fourth of July,
\nSome specks in our history’s amber descry?
\nAs the politic small boy will creep, on the sly,
\nTo the side of the table that’s nearest the pie,
\nSo we press around — and the crowding is great —
\nTo the luscious pie-side of the table of fate.
\nBut the small boy will learn, as the swift years go by,
\nThere are viands transcendently better than pie.<\/p>\n

Let us look at the sum of our work ‘neath the sun.
\nHave we yet done as much as the old past has done?
\nWe have built our large cities of marble and brick;
\nBut our Shakespeares and Platos are not very thick.
\nWe have urged them to speak with the best of good-will;
\nBut our Miltons are mute and inglorious still.
\nOur dawn has now passed, and the morning grows late;
\nBut our absentee Angelos linger and wait.
\nOur hastening noonday encroaches on morn:
\nBut our Darwins and Newtons have yet to be born.<\/p>\n

From the dead buried past there are phantoms arise,
\nWith scorn in the cavernous deeps of their eyes;
\nAnd they say, “We have searched for him, patient and far,
\nThrough your broad-acred Land of the Evening Star.
\nWe have called for him long; but his voice is still dumb.
\nOur brother still lingers; our peer does not come.”<\/p>\n

\n
\n

But we have had epics of mighty designs
\nOn manuscript ruled with the longitude lines.
\nOn a continent-manuscript, boldly and free,
\nWe have written our epics in railroads; and we
\nHave worked out our dramas. Each act is an age;
\nAnd a land from the sea to the sea is our stage.
\nWe have grappled with nature, and tamed her.
\nThe fen,
\nThe swamp, and the forest, the wolverine’s den,
\nThe home of the bison, the haunt of the bear,
\nThe thronged and the tall-towered cities are there;
\nAnd the nest of the serpent, the wild dragon fen,
\nResound with the shouts of the children of men.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now the snake’s hiss is hushed, and the wolf’s howl is dumb,
\nHas the hour not struck for our poet to come?
\nNow our cables are laid, and our railroads are wrought,
\nBuild us temples and fanes for the high-priests of thought.
\nNow our prairies by million-trod pavements are lined,
\nBuild us highways that stretch to the frontiers of mind.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Now our cities are sown by sea, river, and glen,
\nLet us look for a harvest of epochal men<\/span>;
\nLet us look for a Voice from the wilderness sent
\nTo teach us a wise and divine discontent,\u2014
\nDiscontent at mere bulk, tossed by waves and by breeze,
\nWith no pilot soul on the rudderless seas.
\nLet us look for great bards whose tones, fervent and strong,
\nShall burst like the morn through our twilight of song;
\nWise prophets, whose sky-lifted eyes are alight
\nWith a gleam that is caught from the future’s far height,
\nWho see through the fogs o’er the valley outspread
\nThe sunburst of hope on the mountains ahead.
\nIs it not time to grow, in town, village, and glen,
\nA strong breed of men <\/span>who are saviours of men<\/span>?
\nStrong pioneer souls who shall blaze out the way
\nFrom the frontiers of night to the borders of day?
\nShall not this maternal pure soil of the West
\nFoster sages and seers on its matronly breast?
\nShall we not find once more, in these late years again,
\nThe pride of old Homer, wise shepherds of men<\/span>?
\nLet us beckon these men, <\/span>with our favor and praise,
\nAnd giants shall grow in the earth in these days.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

We are large, and our largeness there’s none to deny;
\nBut Fate calls, and who answers with brave “Here am I”?
\nLittle Athens was small, but her soul still survives
\nWith gifts of its graces in millions of lives;
\nBut Scythia was large, and the long ages tread
\nOn the answerless dust of her myriad dead.
\nLittle Concord — great sons made this small village great;
\nGreat Chicago — ah, well! We will listen and wait.<\/p>\n

There is music, I know, that is hopeful and blithe
\nIn the swing of the sickle, the sweep of the scythe;
\nIn the lisp of the foreplane, the smith’s anvil-peal,
\nIn the roar of the mill, and the clash of its wheel;
\nThere’s a music that’s timed to the rhythmical beat
\nOf the quick-step of Fate in the thunderous street;
\nThere’s a music that’s played by the breeze and the gale
\nIn the creak of the mast and the flap of the sail;
\nAnd there’s something that smacks of an epical strain
\nIn the clank of the engine, the sweep of the train.
\nThis music, though mixed with the toilers’ tired moan,
\nAnd mingled with heart-break too deep for a groan,
\nIs wrought out at length in an anthem sublime
\nThat fills without discord the wise ear of Time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

But this is but prelude Fate’s orchestra plays,
\nTo the strains that shall come in the fulness of days;
\nFor the age-lengthened rhythm beat out by the Fates
\nIn the building of cities, the founding of states,
\nIn the earthquakes of war, in its thunder and groans,
\nIn the battles of kings, and the crumbling of thrones,
\nIs but prelude that’s written by Destiny’s pen
\nTo herald an epoch of masterful men.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

In that day we shall worship, by wisdom made whole,
\nNot greatness of bulk, but perfection of soul;
\nAnd the thought-millionaires with our full acclaim then
\nWill be wreathed and anointed the leaders of men.
\n<\/span>And methinks our Great Fate, from the hills to the sea,
\nHas sent forth this call to the years yet to be: \u2014<\/p>\n

Bring me men <\/span>to match my mountains;
\nBring me men <\/span>to match my plains, \u2014
\nMen <\/span>with empires in their purpose,
\nAnd new eras in their brains.
\nBring me men <\/span>to match my prairies,
\nMen <\/span>to match my inland seas,
\nMen <\/span>whose thought shall pave a highway
\nUp to ampler destinies;
\nPioneers to clear Thought’s marshlands,
\nAnd to cleanse old Error’s fen;
\nBring me men <\/span>to match my mountains —
\n Bring me men<\/span>!<\/p>\n

Bring me men <\/span>to match my forests,
\nStrong to fight the storm and blast,
\nBranching toward the skyey future,
\nRooted in the fertile past.
\nBring me men <\/span>to match my valleys,
\nTolerant of sun and snow,
\nMen <\/span>within whose fruitful purpose
\nTime’s consummate blooms shall grow.
\nMen <\/span>to tame the tigerish instincts
\nOf the lair and cave and den,
\nCleanse the dragon slime of Nature —
\nBring me men<\/span>!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Bring me men <\/span>to match my rivers,
\nContinent cleavers, flowing free,
\nDrawn by the eternal madness
\nTo be mingled with the sea;
\nMen <\/span>of oceanic impulse,
\nMen <\/span>whose moral currents sweep
\nToward the wide-infolding ocean
\nOf an undiscovered deep;
\nMen <\/span>who feel the strong pulsation
\nOf the Central Sea, and then
\nTime their currents to its earth throb —
\n Bring me men<\/span>!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The Coming American” From Whiffs from Wild Meadows By Sam Walter Foss [Read at Mr. Henry C. Bowen’s Annual Fourth of July Celebration, at Roseland Park, Woodstock, Conn., July 4, 1894.] On the Fourth of July we all love to dilate With the thought that we are inexpressibly great; That we’re all legatees of fate’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48826,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[502,42272],"tags":[42295],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-41740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character","category-manhood","tag-manvotionals"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2015\/06\/men-380x280.jpg","reactor-320":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2015\/06\/men-320x457.jpg","rpwe-thumbnail":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2015\/06\/men-45x45.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41740"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121827,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41740\/revisions\/121827"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41740"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=41740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}