Two twins were born from tyranny:
Fortitude and Liberty.
The boy was firm, strong and brave
And unafraid of any grave,
Refusing kings and cruelty
And state enforced idolatry.
The girl was free, wild and shy,
Finding beauty in the eye
Of every man and every child,
Those beloved and those reviled.

The Crimson Twins were raised by lights,
Nursed by words of sacred rights—
Philosophy, economy,
Theology and polity—
Weaned by ink of steady men
Who ended kingdoms by their pen.

They found a land, an Eden land,
Much better than they could have planned,
From sea to sea, a majesty
Wherein they traveled happily.
They built their cities in the hills,
Around the rivers and their fills,
Among the plains and valleys low,
On mountains growing tall and slow.
And so they grew in both their right
And worked together in the sight
Of every nation king whose hands
Were bleeding people to this land.
Liberty accepted them
And clothed them in her silken hem,
While Fortitude defended all
With hopes to build a home and wall.

They worked and loved in this new life,
Yet still between them came a strife,
A war of siblings, low and rude,
‘Tween Liberty and Fortitude.
They killed and died on every side
Until they healed this great divide,
Forgave, embraced, and cleared the way,
Though scarred and tender to this day.

They grew much faster till they found
More war within the world round:
Nations craving lands and races,
Disregarding human faces.
Liberty would weep to see
This loss of life and cruelty.
She begged her brother’s working arms
To save them the tyrant harms.
She wept in fear to see him go
But gave him garlands fashioned so,
To wreath the weak and trodden down,
To stop injustice in each town,
To break the hands that made the fray
And teach the beauties of her way.
And so was stopped the double war
That raged the world near and far.
The Crimson Twins this glory bore,
A force no one could now ignore.

Fortitude returned to home,
Across the seas and roaming foam,
And found his sister safe from war,
Though both were different than before.
She was angry, he was cold,
Though both retained their smiles of old.
Disagreements soon became
The language of their daily frame.
Scars were opened up again
With blinding blame for what had been.

And now—the neighbor smiles are gone
And fences guard each little lawn.
Liberty now lives in cities,
From her tower, mocks and pities;
Fortitude to rural scenes
Retreats and mocks her lavish means;
Neither thinking of the past
When they were fixed and bonded fast.
And so they won’t be till that time
When war restores them to their prime.