| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | Fatherland | | By Hermann Hagedorn |
| | | THERE is no sword in my hand | |
| Where I watch oversea. | |
| Father’s land, mother’s land, | |
| What will you say of me, | |
| Who am blood of your German blood, | 5 |
| Through and through, | |
| Yet would not, if I could, | |
| Slaughter for you? | |
| What will you say of one | |
| Who has no heart | 10 |
| Even to cheer you on? | |
| No heavens part, | |
| No guiding God appears | |
| To my strained eyes. | |
| Athwart the fog of fears | 15 |
| And hates and lies, | |
| I see no goal, I mark | |
| No ringing message flying; | |
| Only a brawl in the dark | |
| And death and the groans of the dying. | 20 |
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| For you, your men of dreams | |
| And your strong men of deeds | |
| Crumble, and die with screams, | |
| And under hoofs like weeds | |
| Are trampled; for you, | 25 |
| In city and on hill | |
| Voices you knew | |
| And needed are still. | |
| And roundabout | |
| Harbor and shoal | 30 |
| The lights of your soul | |
| Go out. | |
| To what end, O Fatherland? | |
| I see your legions sweep | |
| Like waves up the gray strand. | 35 |
| I hear your women weep. | |
| And the sound is as the groaning | |
| Swish of the ebbing wave— | |
| A nation’s pitiful moaning | |
| Beside an open grave. | 40 |
| Ah, Fatherland, not all | |
| Who love you most, | |
| Armed to triumph or fall, | |
| March with your mighty host. | |
| Some there are yet, as I, | 45 |
| Who stand apart, | |
| And with aching heart | |
| Ponder the Whither and Why | |
| Of the tragic story, | |
| Asking with bated breath, | 50 |
| Which way lies glory, | |
| And which way, death? | | | | |
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