Awaken

By Lawrence Tribble, this poem has been variously dated as 1751, 1770 or "late Eighteenth Century." Doubtless written to celebrate "The Great Awakening" religious revival in America which began in the 1740s, it was also revived at the time of the Revolution. The poem certainly has both a religious and secular meaning.

Mike
III

One Man awake,
Awakens another.
The second awakens
His next-door brother.
The three awake can rouse a town
By turning
The whole place
Upside down.

The many awake
Can make such a fuss
It finally awakens
The rest of us.
One man up,
With dawn in his eyes,
Surely then,
Multiplies.