Listen to the Drum

Listen to the Drum
by Vivian Gilbert Zabel


Listen to the drum
As it marks the pace of the Pilgrims
As they land at Plymouth Rock,
As it rolls the beat of their struggle
With disease, with want, with death.
Listen to the drum
As it tells of the fight for freedom,
As they and others seek
What in Europe cannot be found.
Listen to the drum.

Listen to the drum
As freedom’s loss is felt
By those who carry tax burdens;
As they, with no one to take their part,
Decide to stand, to show defiance.
Listen to the drum
As English born 'Indians' stage
A tea party in Boston Bay,
A small but lasting act.
Listen to the drum.

Listen to the drum
As pleas, as threats bring no answer
But added taxes and aggravation
To these ‘high minded’ colonies
That dare to voice their discontent.
Listen to the drum
That echoes “Give me liberty or death,”
As men sign a paper, a declaration
That signals the start of a freedom fight.
Listen to the drum.

Listen to the drum
As soldiers march to quell
The ridiculous revolt of the Yankee rebels.
As shots ring out, Redcoats fall
While more come to take their places.
Listen to the drum
As the new nation’s defenders
Toil, fight, freeze, and die
To hold this precious freedom.
Listen to the drum.

Listen to the drum
That sends an answer to weary hearts.
After war leaves, the country
Needs men to build, to guide her
Through her ordeal into destiny.
Listen to the drum
Beat the message of a constitution drawn
From words of Jefferson, Franklin, and more;
The map needed to plot the course is this.
Listen to the drum.

Listen to the drum
That beats the march of Washington,
First a planter, a general, then greater yet
As the first leader of this infant land
That grew from a freedom search.
Listen to the drum
Of a government learning to govern,
Of men learning to lead
Through the perilous times ahead.
Listen to the drum.

Listen to the drum
As time passes with another war,
Again with England, again their loss
As these upstarts do not give
Against unfavorable odds.
Listen to the drum
Declare that this is the land of the free
Where men can surely worship, can live
With equal rights under the law.
Listen to the drum.

Listen to the drum
Beat out the message that all here
Are not yet free nor equal as
A man of untold humble grandeur
Demands the freedom of black and white.
Listen to the drum
As soldiers once again do fight,
But this time a tragic difference,
A young nation is split and torn.
Listen to the drum.

Listen to the drum.
Brother fights brother; kin is foe
As North against South, neighbor hates neighbor.
The tall, gaunt man has another battle
To pull again his country together.
Listen to the drum.
When, after the war is through,
A shot rings out, the tall man falls.
A war-torn country marches to a funeral beat.
Listen to the drum.

Listen to the drum.
The land grows outward, the wild west calls
For the adventurous, the bold to come, to see,
Then to settle, to stay, to build a better world,
To fight, to take, if need be, what they want from others.
Listen to the drum
Around the Indian fires, as they prepare to fight
For what is theirs yet being taken, but their glory is the past.
Listen to the drum.

Listen to the drum
As despite greed, selfishness, foolish pride
Still a better world does grow
As men, true and wise, spread freedom’s word,
Dying to defend it where ‘er they go.
Listen to the drum
Of the Alamo scream with anger, with pain
The loss of many brave men that die
Upholding freedom’s bright banner.
Listen to the drum.

Listen to the drum
Hail the towering war clouds
Piling ever higher to the east,
Threatening the peace of every land
Thousands of miles away.
Listen to the drum
As the World War descends
Upon innocent and guilty alike.
The war to end wars touches then leaves.
Listen to the drum.

Listen to the drum
As peace comes in with a roar
Of the Twenties, a ragtime band,
Gaiety, laughter, prohibition signs of the times
As men vainly try war to forgive.
Listen to the drum
As another enemy appears on the scene.
Depression it is called; hunger, despair it does bring
In times when men jump from windows, death to find.
Listen to the drum.

Listen to the drum
Of World War Two beat out the time of life
Of millions who live within its range.
Horrors done beyond belief
Must be avenged, wrongs be made right.
Listen to the drum
As sun-painted planes destroy all chance
Of this maturing country standing by
Without defending freedom one more time.
Listen to the drum.

Listen to the drum
While children cry, grown men tremble
At the destruction man can deliver
With one bomb upon a city laid.
What price the innocent must pay for the sins of others.
Listen to the drum.
The world once more nurses her wounds
While this rich country helps bind them
With unappreciated time, money, care.
Listen to the drum.

Listen to the drum
Of many battles on foreign fields
Where the blood of young men is shed.
However, harder to withstand are
The battles at home within the land.
Listen to the drum
Of discontent sound over this nation.
Where once freedom was sought
Political crime is commonplace.
Listen to the drum.

Listen to the drum
Crying like the lost souls
Covered with rubble, debris
That crushed, maimed babies, women, men
Because someone thought the government wrong.
Listen to the drum
Beat in rhythm with the hearts that sob
For loved ones and friends no longer here.
Justice calls for no mercy for those who had none.
Listen to the drum.

Listen to the drum.
In a country built on freedom
The beat can still be found
If one tries to find, knows where to look,
Not in books or buildings or laws,
But among the people, deep in their hearts.
Listen to the drum.
This nation still is not beaten.
She stands strong and ever will be
While freedom flows in her bloodstream, her people.
Listen to the drum.

Listen to our drum.



Note:

This poem was started in 1976, during
our bicentennial, and was finished after
the bombing of the federal building in
Oklahoma City, April 19, 1995.