Rudyard Kipling - An American lyrics

The American Spirit speaks: "If the Led Striker call it a strike, Or the papers call it a war, They know not much what I am like, Nor what he is, my Avatar." Through many roads, by me possessed, He shambles forth in cosmic guise; He is the Jester and the Jest, And he the Text himself applies. The Celt is in his heart and hand, The Gaul is in his brain and nerve; Where, cosmopolitanly planned, He guards the Redskin's dry reserve. His easy unswept hearth he lends From Labrador to Guadeloupe; Till, elbowed out by sloven friends, He camps, at sufferance, on the stoop. Calm-eyed he scoffs at sword and crown, Or panic-blinded stabs and slays: Blatant he bids the world bow down, Or cringing begs a crust of praise; Or, sombre-drunk, at mine and mart, He dubs his dreary brethren Kings. His hands are black with blood -- his heart Leaps, as a babe's, at little things. But, through the shift of mood and mood, Mine ancient humour saves him whole -- The cynic devil in his blood That bids him mock his hurrying soul; That bids him flout the Law he makes, That bids him make the Law he flouts, Till, dazed by many doubts, he wakes The drumming guns that -- have no doubts; That checks him foolish -- hot and fond, That chuckles through his deepest ire, That gilds the slough of his despond But dims the goal of his desire; Inopportune, shrill-accented, The acrid Asiatic mirth That leaves him, careless 'mid his dead, The scandal of the elder earth. How shall he clear himself, how reach Your bar or weighed defence prefer? A brother hedged with alien speech And lacking all interpreter. Which knowledge vexes him a space; But while Reproof around him rings, He turns a keen untroubled face Home, to the instant need of things. Enslaved, illogical, elate, He greets th' embarra**ed Gods, nor fears To shake the iron hand of Fate Or match with Destiny for beers. Lo, imperturbable he rules, Unkempt, disreputable, vast -- And, in the teeth of all the schools, I -- I shall save him at the last!