<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The German-American</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Honor to him whose very blood remembers</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The old, enchanted dream-song of the Rhine,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Although his house of life is fair with shine</p><p class="line">Of fires new-kindled on the buried embers;</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Whose heart is wistful for the flowers he tended</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Beside his mother, for the carven gnome</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And climbing bear and cuckoo-clock of home,</p><p class="line">For the whispering forest path two lovers wended;</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Who none the less, still strange in speech and manner,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">With our young Freedom keeps his plighted faith,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Sides with his children's hope against the wraith</p><p class="line">Of his own childhood, hails the Starry Banner</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">As emblem of his country now, to-morrow;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">A patriot by duty, not by birth.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The costliest loyalty has purest worth.</p><p class="line">Honor to him who draws the sword in sorrow!</p></div><p class="byline">-- Katharine Lee Bates.<br xmlns:exist="http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"/> Fifes and Drums. <br xmlns:exist="http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"/> (George H. Doran Co.) </p></body></html> · Great War