Henry Timrod
Go forth and bid the land rejoice,
Yet not too gladly, O my song!
Breathe softly, as if mirth would wrong
The solemn rapture of thy voice.
Be nothing lightly done or said
This happy day! Our joy should flow
Accordant with the lofty woe
That wails above the noble dead.
Let him whose brow and breast were calm
While yet the battle lay with God,
Look down upon the crimson sod
And gravely wear his mournful palm;
And him, whose heart still weak from fear
Beats all too gayly for the time,
Know that intemperate glee is crime
While one dead hero claims a tear.
Yet go thou forth, my song! and thrill,
With sober joy, the troubled days;
A nation’s hymn of grateful praise
May not be hushed for private ill.
Our foes are fallen! Flash, ye wires!
The mighty tidings far and nigh!
Ye cities! write them on the sky
In purple and in emerald fires!
They came with many a haughty boast;
Their threats were heard on every breeze;
They darkened half the neighboring seas;
And swooped like vultures on the coast.
False recreants in all knightly strife,
Their way was wet with woman’s tears;
Behind them flamed the toil of years,
And bloodshed stained the sheaves of life.
They fought as tyrants fight, or slaves;
God gave the dastards to our hands;
Their bones are bleaching on the sands,
Or mouldering slow in shallow graves.
What though we hear about our path
The heavens with howls of vengeance rent?
The venom of their hate is spent;
We need not heed their fangless wrath.
Meantime the stream they strove to chain
Now drinks a thousand springs, and sweeps
With broadening breast, and mightier deeps,
And rushes onward to the main;
While down the swelling current glides
Our Ship of State before the blast,
With streamers poured from every mast,
Her thunders roaring from her sides.
Lord! bid the frenzied tempest cease,
Hang out thy rainbow on the sea!
Laugh round her, waves! in silver glee,
And speed her to the port of peace!
© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes
You may find this and other poems here.
Analysis (AI Assisted)
This poem sits at the uneasy intersection of triumph and grief. It celebrates victory, but the poet never lets joy stand alone. From the opening lines, there’s restraint, almost a sense of guilt that happiness might dishonor the dead. “Be nothing lightly done or said / This happy day!” is both command and confession — a reminder that war’s end is not pure relief. Even in victory, the poet recognizes that the cost is still fresh, the dead not yet buried deep enough for laughter to sound right. It’s a war hymn caught between pride and mourning.
The tone is formal but not cold. The poem reads like a ceremony — deliberate, reverent, careful about when and how to feel. Its rhythm carries the dignity of public speech, the kind that might be read at a civic gathering or after a great battle. The poet urges moderation: “Breathe softly, as if mirth would wrong / The solemn rapture of thy voice.” It’s a warning against forgetting the moral weight of victory. That balance between celebration and sorrow is what gives the poem its gravity.
In the early stanzas, the poet divides the emotional responses of the living. There are those who faced the battle calmly, who can wear “his mournful palm” — the symbol of triumph tempered by loss. Then there are those “whose heart still weak from fear / Beats all too gayly for the time.” Their joy is misplaced, premature, almost indecent. Here the poet’s moral sense is clear: bravery and restraint are twin virtues, while shallow relief is a kind of moral failure. The war, even when won, still demands solemnity.
When the poem finally turns outward — “Our foes are fallen! Flash, ye wires!” — the voice swells. The victory is public now, shouted through the telegraph and written in “purple and in emerald fires” across the sky. This section feels almost cinematic: the communication of victory, the illumination of cities, the return of national pride. Yet the grandeur of the imagery doesn’t erase the bitterness beneath it. The enemy is called “false recreants,” their path marked by cruelty, “wet with woman’s tears.” The language here grows harsh, and the poet’s earlier restraint bends under the weight of moral condemnation. The poem doesn’t just report triumph; it justifies it.
The following stanzas make no attempt at subtlety. The enemy “fought as tyrants fight, or slaves,” and their “bones are bleaching on the sands.” There’s both vengeance and relief in that image. It’s brutal, but it also feels like closure. The poet names divine judgment as the force behind the outcome — “God gave the dastards to our hands” — so that victory becomes not just military, but spiritual. Yet this invocation of providence carries a quiet tension. The earlier plea for humility clashes with the exultation that follows. The poem wants to celebrate without gloating, but the line between those two feelings is thin, and it wavers.
The closing stanzas pull back from bitterness and return to vision. The “Ship of State” — a familiar but effective metaphor — sails forward on a swelling tide. The war, once a restraint, has now become the current that propels the nation. The sea is no longer hostile; it’s the stage of progress. “Lord! bid the frenzied tempest cease, / Hang out thy rainbow on the sea!” The prayer at the end restores balance to the tone. It’s an acknowledgment that peace, not conquest, is the true reward. The poem’s faith returns, not in God as a weapon, but as a calmer of storms.
Read as a whole, the poem is both patriotic and penitential. It wants to honor victory while keeping dignity intact. The poet’s moral sensibility prevents the tone from collapsing into triumphalism, even when the language grows fierce. This is war poetry that understands the price of its own pride. Its most memorable quality is its self-awareness — the constant effort to discipline emotion, to praise without losing humanity. The result is not an anthem of conquest, but a meditation on what victory costs, and how a nation might carry its joy without shame.