"Sometimes I droop, for then purpose has gone from me, and cynically I play the coward.

"Sometimes I am loud, garish, and full of that ego that blasts judgment.

"But always, I am all that you hope to be, and have the courage to try for.

"I am song and fear, struggle and panic, and ennobling hope.

"I am the day's work of the weakest man, and the largest dream of the most daring.

"I am the Constitution and the courts, statutes and the statute makers, soldier and dreadnaught, drayman and street sweep, cook, counselor, and clerk.

“I am the battle of yesterday, and the mistake of to

morrow.

"I am the mystery of the men who do without knowing why.

"I am the clutch of an idea, and the reasoned purpose of resolution.

"I am no more than what you believe me to be and I am all that you believe I can be.

"I am what you make me, nothing more.

"I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a symbol of yourself, the pictured suggestion of that big thing which makes this nation. My stars and my stripes are your dream and your labors. They are bright with cheer, brilliant with courage, firm with faith, because you have made them so out of your hearts. For you are the makers of the flag, and it is well that you glory in the making."

THE NAME OF OLD GLORY1

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY (1853-1917)

I

Old Glory! say, who,

By the ships and the crew,

And the long, blended ranks of the gray and the blue,
Who gave you, Old Glory, the name that you bear
With such pride everywhere

As you cast yourself free to the rapturous air
And leap out full-length, as we're wanting you to?
Who gave you that name with the ring of the same,
And the honor and fame so becoming to you?
Your stripes stroked in ripples of white and of red,
With your stars at their glittering best overhead —
By day or by night

Their delightfullest light

Laughing down from their little square heaven of blue!
Who gave you the name of Old Glory?
Who gave you the name of Old Glory?

The old banner lifted, and faltering then,
In vague lisps and whispers fell silent again.

say, who

Old Glory, — speak out!

II

speak out! we are asking about
How you happened to " favor a name, so to say,
That sounds so familiar and careless and gay
As we cheer it and shout in our wild, breezy way

1 From the Biographical Edition of the Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley, Vol. V. Copyright, 1913. Used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis.

We-the crowd, every man of us calling you that —
We - Tom, Dick, and Harry - each swinging his hat
And hurrahing "Old Glory!" like you were our kin,

When Lord! we all know we're as common as sin!
And yet it just seems like you humor us all,
And waft us your thanks, as we hail you and fall
Into line, with you over us, waving us on
Where our glorified, sanctified betters have gone. —
And this is the reason we're wanting to know

(And we're wanting it so!

Where our own fathers went we are willing to go.)
Who gave you the name of Old Glory - Oho!-
Who gave you the name of Old Glory?

The old flag unfurled with a billowy thrill
For an instant, then wistfully sighed and was still.

III

Old Glory, the story we're wanting to hear
Is what the plain facts of your christening were,—
For your name just to hear it,

Repeat it, and cheer it, 's a tang to the spirit

As salt as a tear;

And seeing you fly, and the boys marching by,

There's a shout in the throat and a blur in the eye
And an aching to live for you always or die,
If, dying, we still keep you waving on high.
And so, by our love

For you, floating above,

And the scars of all wars and the sorrows thereof,
Who gave you the name of Old Glory, and why
Are we thrilled at the name of Old Glory?

Then the old banner leaped like a sail in the blast,
And fluttered an audible answer at last.

IV

And it spake, with a shake of the voice, and it said:-
By the driven snow-white and the living blood-red
Of my bars, and their heaven of stars overhead
By the symbol conjoined of them all, skyward cast,
As I float from the steeple or flap at the mast,
Or droop o'er the sod where the long grasses nod, —
My name is as old as the glory of God.

So I came by the name of Old Glory.