{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/easter-road",
 "title": "Easter Road",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": "1918",
 "poet": "Henry van Dyke Jr.",
 "poet_slug": "henry-van-dyke-jr",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 126,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1920,
  "venue": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1920)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1920 collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume gathers work published from 1897 onward, and which earlier book or magazine printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/henry-van-dyke-jr_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16134",
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   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3525",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9372",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29314",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43094",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/buildersotherpoe00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/toilingoffelixan00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/musicotherpoems0000henr_c7v6",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsnowfirstcol00vanduoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/songsoutofdoors0000vand",
   "https://archive.org/details/thyseaisgreatour00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/chosenpoems0000vand"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 30,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 61,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Under the cloud of world-wide war,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While earth is drenched with sorrow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have no heart for idle merrymaking,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or for the fashioning of glad raiment.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I will retrace the divine footmarks,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the Road of the first Easter.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Down through the valley of utter darkness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dripping with blood and tears;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over the hill of the skull, the little hill of great anguish,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ambuscade of Death.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into the no-man’s-land of Hades",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bearing despatches of hope to spirits in prison,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mortally stricken and triumphant",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Went the faithful Captain of Salvation.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then upward, swiftly upward⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Victory, liberty, glory,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The feet that were wounded walked in the tranquil garden,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bathed in dew and the light of deathless dawn.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O my soul, my comrades, soldiers of freedom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Follow the pathway of Easter, for there is no other,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Follow it through to peace, yea, follow it fighting.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This Armageddon is not darker than Calvary.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The day will break when the Dragon is vanquished;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He that exalteth himself as God shall be cast down,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the Lords of war shall fall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the long, long terror be ended,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Victory, justice, peace enduring!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They that die in this cause shall live forever,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And they that live shall never die,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They shall rejoice together in the Easter of a new world.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}