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Admire and hate thy blooming years.
With words of shame

And taunts of scorn they join thy name.

For on thy cheeks the glow is spread
That tints thy morning hills with red;
Thy step the wild-deer's rustling feet
Within thy woods are not more fleet;
Thy hopeful eye

Is bright as thine own sunny sky.

Ay, let them rail- those haughty ones,
While safe thou dwellest with thy sons.
They do not know how loved thou art,
How many a fond and fearless heart
Would rise to throw

Its life between thee and the foe.

They know not, in their hate and pride,
What virtues with thy children bide;
How true, how good, thy graceful maids
Make bright, like flowers, the valley-shades;
What generous men

Spring, like thine oaks, by hill and glen;

What cordial welcomes greet the guest
By thy lone rivers of the West;

How faith is kept, and truth revered,
And man is loved, and God is feared,
In woodland homes,

And where the ocean border foams.

-

There's freedom at thy gates and rest
For Earth's down-trodden and opprest,
A shelter for the hunted head,

For the starved laborer toil and bread.
Power, at thy bounds,

Stops and calls back his baffled hounds.

Oh, fair young mother! on thy brow
Shall sit a nobler grace than now.
Deep in the brightness of the skies
The thronging years in glory rise,
And, as they fleet,

Drop strength and riches at thy feet.

Thine eye, with every coming hour,
Shall brighten, and thy form shall tower;
And when thy sisters, elder born,

Would brand thy name with words of scorn,
Before thine eye,

Upon their lips the taunt shall die.

AMERICA

Extract from The National Ode

BAYARD TAYLOR

FORESEEN in the vision of sages,

Foretold when martyrs bled,

She was born of the longing of ages,
By the truth of the noble dead
And the faith of the living fed!

No blood in her lightest veins
Frets at remembered chains,

Nor shame of bondage has bowed her head.
In her form and features still

The unblenching Puritan will,
Cavalier honor, Huguenot grace,
The Quaker truth and sweetness,

And the strength of the danger-girdled race
Of Holland, blend in a proud completeness.
From the homes of all, where her being began,
She took what she gave to Man;

Justice, that knew no station,
Belief, as soul decreed,
Free air for aspiration,

Free force for independent deed!
She takes, but to give again,
As the sea returns the rivers in rain;
And gathers the chosen of her seed

From the hunted of every crown and creed.
Her Germany dwells by a gentler Rhine;
Her Ireland sees the old sunburst shine;
Her France pursues some dream divine;
Her Norway keeps his mountain pine;
Her Italy waits by the western brine;
And, broad-based under all,

Is planted England's oaken-hearted mood,
As rich in fortitude

As e'er went worldward from the island-wall!
Fused in her candid light,

To one strong race all races here unite:

Tongues melt in hers, hereditary foemen

Forget their sword and slogan, kith and clan;

'Twas glory, once, to be a Roman: She makes it glory, now, to be a man!

I HEAR AMERICA SINGING

WALT WHITMAN

I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or

beam,

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,

The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her, and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

OUR COUNTRY

JULIA WARD HOWE

On primal rocks she wrote her name,
Her towers were reared on holy graves;
The golden seed that bore her came
Swift-winged with prayer o'er ocean waves.

The Forest bowed his solemn crest,
And open flung his sylvan doors;
Meek Rivers led the appointed Guest
To clasp the wide-embracing shores;

Till, fold by fold, the broidered Land
To swell her virgin vestments grew,
While sages, strong in heart and hand,
Her virtue's fiery girdle drew.

O Exile of the wrath of Kings!
O Pilgrim Ark of Liberty!
The refuge of divinest things,
Their record must abide in thee.

First in the glories of thy front
Let the crown jewel, Truth, be found;
Thy right hand fling, with generous wont,
Love's happy chain to furthest bound.

Let Justice with the faultless scales
Hold fast the worship of thy sons,

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