Centennial (wiersz Williama Vicarsa Lawrance’a)

Centennial – wiersz amerykańskiego prawnika, prozaika i poety Williama Vicarsa Lawrance’a, opublikowany w 1889 przez Riverside Press w tomie The Story of Judeth: a Tale of Bethany, with Poems of Home, Heart, and Hearth. Utwór jest dziesięciostronicową odą na cześć Człowieka Zachodu (Man of the West) i stanu Ohio. Został napisany nieregularnym.

Rome in her plan made the best out of man,

The physical, ponderous animal man,

And drove him a thunderbolt into the van

Of armed opposition, in war's deadly thrust,

And trampled them down and ground into dust,

In her all-conquering day,

All nations that stood in her way;

Then out of their ruin brought life,

And out of the besom of strife,

If not peace,

Brought ease;

And out of the ignorant night

Brought strength in exchange for light;

Gave muscle and brawn,

Took the light and the dawn

Of the Arts, of Poetry, Painting, and Mind,

Of all the known world in their best, their refined,

From all lands and all human-kind ;

And gathering the centuries in a span,

Wrought out and left this, her model of Man.

Rome's best!

Stand up, O Man of our West!

W poemacie występuje wiele przykładów paralelizmu wprowadzanego anaforą, na przykład: Come up from these rivers, so beautifully flowing;/Come up from these valleys, resplendent and glowing; itd.; Call them home to the feast for them spread;/Call them home to thy natal year’s century fled;; Come, all ye people born/In this land’s later morn,/Come, bringing sheaves of corn;/Come, bringing fruits and flowers/From teeming fields and bowers;.

Poeta napisał również wiersz Centennial Song.

Bibliografia

• William Vicars Lawrance: The Story of Judeth: a Tale of Bethany, with Poems of Home, Heart, and Hearth. Archive.org, 1889. [dostęp 2017-04-19]. (ang.)..