Men To Match My Mountains

 

"As the mountains are about Jerusalem, So the Lord is around His people
From this time forth and forevermore."
(Psalm 125:2)

*Abraham Bledsoe

(2020)

David Wright
American artist
Image courtesy/Tennessee State Museum

Bring me men to match my mountains;

Bring me men to match my plains,-

Men with empires in their purpose,

And new eras in their brains.

Bring me men to match my prairies,

Men to match my inland seas,

Men whose thought shall pave a highway

Up to ampler destinies;

Pioneers to clear Thought's marshlands,

And to cleanse old error's fen;

Bring me men to match my mountains-

Bring me men!

Bring me men to match my forests,

Strong to fight the storm and blast,

Branching toward the skyey future,

Rooted in the fertile past.

Bring me men to match my valleys,

Tolerant of sun and snow,

Men within whose fruitful purpose

Time's consummate blooms shall grow.

Men to tame the tigerish instincts

Of lair and cave and den,

Cleanse the dragon slime of nature-

Bring me men!

Bring me men to match my rivers,

Continent cleavers, flowing free,

Drawn by the eternal madness

To be mingled with the sea;

Men of oceanic impulse,

Men whose moral currents sweep

Toward the wide-enfolding ocean

Of an undiscovered deep;

Men who feel the strong pulsation

Of the Central Sea, and then

Time their currents to its earth throb-

Bring me men!

"Men To Match My Mountains"
From the poetry book,
"Whiffs From Wild Meadows"
(1894)
Sam Walter Foss
(1858-1911)
American librarian and poet

*Abraham "Abram" Bledsoe was a noble, 18th century enslaved
man of bi-racial origins, who lived in what is now Sumner
County, Tennessee at the time of the Indian uprisings against 
the continuing encroachment of white settlements on the frontier.

On April 27, 1793 "Abram" as he was called, repelled an Indian
 attack between Isaac Bledsoe's Fort and Anthony Bledsoe's
Greenfield.  Anthony Bledsoe was Abram's owner.

Only two months later, during a surprise encounter in a
canebrake with Cherokee Chiefs John Taylor and Mad Dog,
Abram shot and killed the latter.

According to Sumner County, Tennessee historical records:

  "He (Abram) was passing one evening from the Lick
fort up to Greenfield, when right in the thick canebrake he 
 met two Cherokee chiefs of note, "Mad Dog" and "John Taylor"
the latter a half-breed, well known in Nashville before the
war broke out, and who could talk good English.
They has been on a visit to the Shawnees; and having
sent their warriors, they were on their way by themselves
to steal horses and murder any settler who might fall in
their way.  Abraham met them about ten paces off,
and instantly drawing up his gun, he shot Mad Dog
dead in his tracks, turning himself at once and
fleeing after his exploit."

In 1813, Abraham found a lost child named Josephus Conn Guild
and guided him to safety.  The rescued Guild never forgot this act of kindness.

Today's Prayer

"Help us, O God, to love our country.  Grant us the grace to cherish
the ideals which made it possible and have given it eminence among
the nations. May the faith of our fathers be our faith.  Forgive us
our personal and national sins, and endow us with the patriotism
that reveals a likeness to Thee in love and righteousness."
We ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

"Patriotic Prayer"
The Church School Hymnal of Youth
F.M. Braselman
(1928)