And still that conquering smile who see
Pledge love, life, service all to thee.
The years have brought thee robes most fair-
The rich processional years,
And filleted thy shining hair,
And zoned thy waist with jewels rare,
And whispered in thine ears
Strange secrets of God's wondrous ways,
Long hid from human awe and praise.
For lo! the living God doth bare his arm.
No more he makes his house of clouds and
Lightly the shuttles move within his loom;
Unveiled his thunder leaps to meet the storm.
From God's right hand man takes the powers that sway
He bows them down; he bids them go or stay;
He tames them for his wars.
He scans the burning paces of the sun,
And names the invisible orbs whose courses run
Through the dim deeps of space.
He sees in dew upon a rose impearled
The swarming legions of a monad world
Begin life's upward race.
Voices of hope he hears
Long dumb to his despair,
And dreams of golden years
Meet for a world so fair.
For now Democracy doth wake and rise
From the sweet sloth of youth.
By storms made strong, by many dreams made wise, He clasps the hand of Truth.
Through the armed nations lies his path of peace,
The open book of knowledge in his hand.
Food to the starving, to the oppressed release,
And love to all he bears from land to land.
Before his march the barriers fall,
The laws grow gentle at his call.
His glowing breath blows far away
The fogs that veil the coming day
That wondrous day
When earth shall sing as through the blue she rolls
Laden with joy for all her thronging souls.
Then shall Want's call to Sin resound no more
Across her teeming fields. And Pain shall sleep,
Soothed by brave Science with her magic lore;
And War no more shall bid the nations weep.
Then the worn chains shall slip from man's desire,
And ever higher and higher
His swift foot shall aspire;
Still deeper and more deep
His soul its watch shall keep,
Till Love shall make the world a holy place,
Where Knowledge dares unveil God's very face.
Not yet the angels hear life's last sweet song.
Music unutterably pure and strong
From earth shall rise to haunt the peopled skies
When the long march of Time,
Patient in birth and death, in growth and blight,
Shall lead man up through happy realms of light
Unto his goal sublime.
Columbia! Men beheld thee rise
A goddess from the misty sea.
Lady of joy, sent from the skies,
The nations worshiped thee.
Thy brows were flushed with dawn's first light;
By foamy waves with stars bedight
Thy blue robe floated free.
Now let the sun ride high o'erhead,
Driving the day from shore to shore.
His burning tread we do not dread,
For thou art evermore
Lady of love, whose smiles shall bless,
Whom brave deeds win to tenderness,
Whose tears the lost restore.
Lady of hope thou art. We wait
With courage thy serene command.
Through unknown seas, toward undreamed fate,
We ask thy guiding hand.
On! though sails quiver in the gale! -
Thou at the helm, we can not fail.
On to God's time-veiled strand!
Lady of beauty! thou shalt win
Glory and power and length of days.
The sun and moon shall be thy kin,
The stars shall sing thy praise.
All hail! we bring thee vows most sweet
To strew before thy wingèd feet.
Now onward be thy ways!
WHEN Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure celestial white
With streakings of the morning light;
Then from his mansion in the sun
She called her eagle-bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land.
Majestic monarch of the cloud,
Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, To hear the tempest-trumpings loud And see the lightning lances driven,
When strive the warriors of the storm, And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven, Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given To guard the banner of the free, To hover in the sulphur smoke, To ward away the battle stroke, And bid its blendings shine afar, Like rainbows on the cloud of war,
The harbingers of victory!
Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,
The sign of hope and triumph high,
When speaks the signal-trumpet tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on.
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,
Each soldier eye shall brightly turn
To where thy sky-born glories burn,
And, as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance.
And when the cannon-mouthings loud
Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud,
And gory sabres rise and fall
Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall,
Then shall thy meteor glances glow,
And cowering foes shall shrink beneath
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.
Flag of the seas! on ocean wave
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;
When death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,
And frighted waves rush wildly back
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
Each dying wanderer of the sea
Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
And smile to see thy splendors fly
In triumph o'er his closing eye.
|