Poems (Kennedy)/The Call to the Colors

by Sara Beaumont Kennedy

THE CALL TO THE COLORS

LIKE the seeds of wind-flowers, lightly blown
  On vagrant, gypsying breeze,
They are scattered wide throughout our land—
  Aliens from over the seas.
They came from the crowded fatherlands
  To share in our broader sphere,
And they built their nests and reared their broods
  Through many a changing year.

But a vibrant cry comes unaware
  From over the crested wave—
The voice of the warring motherlands
  Calling their children to save:
"On our grain-grown fields War plants its guns
  And lights its torch on the crag;
We need you, sons in the Other Lands,
  Come back and fight for the flag!?

And deep in each listener's heart there stirs
  A memory that has slept
'Neath blush of blossom and pallor of snows
  While the years have onward crept;
And he sees in a flash his native hut,
  Where the foeman's banners float—
And he's German again, or French, or Slav
  At thrill of a bugle note!

For a man may wander across the world
  And dwell 'neath a stranger's sky,
But the call of the blood will cleave all space
  When it comes in a battle cry;
And the nest he built and the brood he reared
  Are left to an alien flag
While he turns him home, with his soul aflame,
  To die for a silken rag.