Explore "English Thornton" by Edgar Lee Masters on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Here! You sons of the men / Who fought with Washington at Valley Forge, / And whipped Black Hawk at Starved Rock, / Arise! Do battle with the descendants of those / Who bought land in the loop when it was waste sand, / And sold blankets and guns to the army of Grant, / And sat in legislatures in the early days, / Taking bribes from the railroads!
Arise! Do battle with the fops and bluffs, / The pretenders and figurantes of the society column / And the yokel souls whose daughters marry counts;
And the parasites on great ideas, / And the noisy riders of great causes, / And the heirs of ancient thefts.
Arise! And make the city yours, / And the State yours --
You who are sons of the hardy yeomanry of the forties!
By God! If you do not destroy these vermin / My avenging ghost will wipe out / Your city and your state.