Poems of American History

by Unknown

CHAPTER II

THE YEAR OF A HUNDRED YEARS

The year 1876 marked the completion of the first century of independence, and it was decided to celebrate it in a worthy manner. The city of Philadelphia, where the country had been born, was fittingly selected as the place for the celebration.

OUR FIRST CENTURY

It cannot be that men who are the seed
Of Washington should miss fame's true applause;
Franklin did plan us; Marshall gave us laws;
And slow the broad scroll grew a people's creed—
Union and Liberty! then at our need,
Time's challenge coming, Lincoln gave it pause,
Upheld the double pillars of the cause,
And dying left them whole—our crowning deed.

Such was the fathering race that made all fast,
Who founded us, and spread from sea to sea
A thousand leagues the zone of liberty,
And built for man this refuge from his past,
Unkinged, unchurched, unsoldiered; shamed were we,
Failing the stature that such sires forecast!

George Edward Woodberry.

The celebration took the form of a great industrial exposition, at which the arts and industries of the whole world were represented. The exposition was opened on May 10, 1876, more than a hundred thousand people being present. Wagner had composed a march for the occasion and Whittier's "Centennial Hymn" was sung by a chorus of a thousand voices.

CENTENNIAL HYMN

I
Our fathers' God! from out whose hand
The centuries fall like grains of sand,
We meet to-day, united, free,
And loyal to our land and Thee,
To thank Thee for the era done,
And trust Thee for the opening one.

II
Here, where of old, by Thy design,
The fathers spake that word of Thine
Whose echo is the glad refrain
Of rended bolt and falling chain,
To grace our festal time, from all
The zones of earth our guests we call.

III
Be with us while the New World greets
The Old World thronging all its streets,
Unveiling all the triumphs won
By art or toil beneath the sun;
And unto common good ordain
This rivalship of hand and brain.

IV
Thou, who hast here in concord furled
The war flags of a gathered world,
Beneath our Western skies fulfil
The Orient's mission of good-will,
And, freighted with love's Golden Fleece,
Send back its Argonauts of peace.

V
For art and labor met in truce,
For beauty made the bride of use,
We thank Thee; but, withal, we crave
The austere virtues strong to save,
The honor proof to place or gold,
The manhood never bought nor sold!

VI
Oh make Thou us, through centuries long,
In peace secure, in justice strong;
Around our gift of freedom draw
The safeguards of Thy righteous law:
And, cast in some diviner mould,
Let the new cycle shame the old!

John Greenleaf Whittier.

"The restored South chanted the praises of the Union in the words of Sidney Lanier, the Georgia poet." The poem was written as a cantata, the music for which was composed by Dudley Buck.

THE CENTENNIAL MEDITATION OF COLUMBIA[13]

1776-1876

From this hundred-terraced height,
Sight more large with nobler light
Ranges down yon towering years.
Humbler smiles and lordlier tears
Shine and fall, shine and fall,
While old voices rise and call
Yonder where the to-and-fro
Weltering of my Long-Ago
Moves about the moveless base
Far below my resting-place.

Mayflower, Mayflower, slowly hither flying,
Trembling westward o'er yon balking sea,
Hearts within Farewell dear England sighing,
Winds without But dear in vain replying,
Gray-lipp'd waves about thee shouted, crying
"No! It shall not be!"

Jamestown, out of thee—
Plymouth, thee—thee, Albany—
Winter cries, Ye freeze: away!
Fever cries, Ye burn: away!
Hunger cries, Ye starve: away!
Vengeance cries, Your graves shall stay!

Then old Shapes and Masks of Things,
Framed like Faiths or clothed like Kings,
Ghosts of Goods once fleshed and fair,
Grown foul Bads in alien air—
War, and his most noisy lords,
Tongued with lithe and poisoned swords—
Error, Terror, Rage, and Crime,
All in a windy night of time
Cried to me from land and sea,
No! Thou shalt not be!

Hark!
Huguenots whispering yea in the dark,
Puritans answering yea in the dark!
Yea like an arrow shot true to his mark,
Darts through the tyrannous heart of Denial.
Patience and Labor and solemn-souled Trial,
Foiled, still beginning,
Soiled, but not sinning.
Toil through the stertorous death of the Night,
Toil when wild brother-wars new-dark the Light,
Toil, and forgive, and kiss o'er, and replight.

Now Praise to God's oft-granted grace,
Now Praise to Man's undaunted face,
Despite the land, despite the sea,
I was: I am: and I shall be—
How long, Good Angel, O how long?
Sing me from Heaven a man's own song!

"Long as thine Art shall love true love,
Long as thy Science truth shall know,
Long as thine Eagle harms no Dove,
Long as thy Law by law shall grow,
Long as thy God is God above,
Thy brother every man below,
So long, dear Land of all my love,
Thy name shall shine, thy fame shall glow!"

O Music, from this height of time my Word unfold:
In thy large signals all men's hearts Man's heart behold:
Mid-heaven unroll thy chords as friendly flags unfurled,
And wave the world's best lover's welcome to the world.

Sidney Lanier.

President Grant then declared the exposition open. It was a success from the very start, and great crowds were every day in attendance.

CENTENNIAL HYMN

1876

Through calm and storm the years have led
Our nation on, from stage to stage—
A century's space—until we tread
The threshold of another age.

We see where o'er our pathway swept
A torrent-stream of blood and fire,
And thank the Guardian Power who kept
Our sacred League of States entire.

Oh, chequered train of years, farewell!
With all thy strifes and hopes and fears!
Yet with us let thy memories dwell,
To warn and teach the coming years.

And thou, the new-beginning age,
Warned by the past, and not in vain,
Write on a fairer, whiter page,
The record of thy happier reign.

William Cullen Bryant.

On July 4, 1876, simple but impressive exercises were held in the public square in the rear of Independence Hall, where, a century before, a great throng had awaited the promulgation of the "Declaration."

WELCOME TO THE NATIONS

PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1876

Bright on the banners of lily and rose
Lo! the last sun of our century sets!
Wreathe the black cannon that scowled on our foes,
All but her friendships the nation forgets!
All but her friends and their welcome forgets!
These are around her; but where are her foes?
Lo, while the sun of her century sets,
Peace with her garlands of lily and rose!

Welcome! a shout like the war trumpet's swell
Wakes the wild echoes that slumber around!
Welcome! it quivers from Liberty's bell;
Welcome! the walls of her temple resound!
Hark! the gray walls of her temple resound!
Fade the far voices o'er hillside and dell;
Welcome! still whisper the echoes around;
Welcome! still trembles on Liberty's bell!

Thrones of the continent! isles of the sea!
Yours are the garlands of peace we entwine;
Welcome, once more, to the land of the free,
Shadowed alike by the palm and the pine;
Softly they murmur, the palm and the pine,
"Hushed is our strife, in the land of the free;"
Over your children their branches entwine
Thrones of the continents! isles of the sea!

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

"The National Ode" was read by its author, Bayard Taylor, whose deep voice and impressive delivery added appreciably to the majesty of the lines.

THE NATIONAL ODE

INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1876

I-1
Sun of the stately Day,
Let Asia into the shadow drift,
Let Europe bask in thy ripened ray,
And over the severing ocean lift
A brow of broader splendor!
Give light to the eager eyes
Of the Land that waits to behold thee rise;
The gladness of morning lend her,
With the triumph of noon attend her,
And the peace of the vesper skies!
For, lo! she cometh now
With hope on the lip and pride on the brow,
Stronger, and dearer, and fairer,
To smile on the love we bear her,—
To live, as we dreamed her and sought her,
Liberty's latest daughter!
In the clefts of the rocks, in the secret places,
We found her traces;
On the hills, in the crash of woods that fall,
We heard her call;
When the lines of battle broke,
We saw her face in the fiery smoke;
Through toil, and anguish, and desolation,
We followed, and found her
With the grace of a virgin Nation
As a sacred zone around her!
Who shall rejoice
With a righteous voice,
Far-heard through the ages, if not she?
For the menace is dumb that defied her,
The doubt is dead that denied her,
And she stands acknowledged, and strong, and free!

II-1
Ah, hark! the solemn undertone,
On every wind of human story blown.
A large, divinely-moulded Fate
Questions the right and purpose of a State,
And in its plan sublime
Our eras are the dust of Time.
The far-off Yesterday of power
Creeps back with stealthy feet,
Invades the lordship of the hour,
And at our banquet takes the unbidden seat.
From all unchronicled and silent ages
Before the Future first begot the Past,
Till History dared, at last,
To write eternal words on granite pages;
From Egypt's tawny drift, and Assur's mound,
And where, uplifted white and far,
Earth highest yearns to meet a star,
And Man his manhood by the Ganges found,—
Imperial heads, of old millennial sway,
And still by some pale splendor crowned,
Chill as a corpse-light in our full-orbed day,
In ghostly grandeur rise
And say, through stony lips and vacant eyes:
"Thou that assertest freedom, power, and fame,
Declare to us thy claim!"

I-2
On the shores of a Continent cast,
She won the inviolate soil
By loss of heirdom of all the Past,
And faith in the royal right of Toil!
She planted homes on the savage sod:
Into the wilderness lone
She walked with fearless feet,
In her hand the divining-rod,
Till the veins of the mountains beat
With fire of metal and force of stone!
She set the speed of the river-head
To turn the mills of her bread;
She drove her ploughshare deep
Through the prairie's thousand-centuried sleep,
To the South, and West, and North,
She called Pathfinder forth,
Her faithful and sole companion
Where the flushed Sierra, snow-starred,
Her way to the sunset barred,
And the nameless rivers in thunder and foam
Channelled the terrible canyon!
Nor paused, till her uttermost home
Was built, in the smile of a softer sky
And the glory of beauty still to be,
Where the haunted waves of Asia die
On the strand of the world-wide sea!

II-2
The race, in conquering,
Some fierce, Titanic joy of conquest knows;
Whether in veins of serf or king,
Our ancient blood beats restless in repose.
Challenge of Nature unsubdued
Awaits not Man's defiant answer long;
For hardship, even as wrong,
Provokes the level-eyed heroic mood.
This for herself she did; but that which lies,
As over earth the skies,
Blending all forms in one benignant glow,—
Crowned conscience, tender care,
Justice that answers every bondman's prayer,
Freedom where Faith may lead and Thought may dare,
The power of minds that know,
Passion of hearts that feel,
Purchased by blood and woe,
Guarded by fire and steel,—
Hath she secured? What blazon on her shield,
In the clear Century's light
Shines to the world revealed,
Declaring nobler triumph, born of Right?

I-3
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!

II-3
Bow down!
Doff thine æonian crown!
One hour forget
The glory, and recall the debt:
Make expiation,
Of humbler mood,
For the pride of thine exultation
O'er peril conquered and strife subdued.
But half the right is wrested
When victory yields her prize,
And half the marrow tested
When old endurance dies.
In the sight of them that love thee,
Bow to the Greater above thee!
He faileth not to smite
The idle ownership of Right,
Nor spares to sinews fresh from trial,
And virtue schooled in long denial,
The tests that wait for thee
In larger perils of prosperity.
Here, at the Century's awful shrine,
Bow to thy Father's God, and thine!

I-4
Behold! she bendeth now,
Humbling the chaplet of her hundred years.
There is a solemn sweetness on her brow,
And in her eyes are sacred tears.
Can she forget,
In present joy, the burden of her debt,
When for a captive race
She grandly staked, and won,
The total promise of her power begun,
And bared her bosom's grace
To the sharp wound that inly tortures yet?
Can she forget
The million graves her young devotion set,
The hands that clasp above,
From either side, in sad, returning love?
Can she forget,
Here, where the Ruler of to-day,
The Citizen of to-morrow,
And equal thousands to rejoice and pray
Beside these holy walls are met,
Her birth-cry, mixed of keenest bliss and sorrow?
Where, on July's immortal morn
Held forth, the People saw her head
And shouted to the world: "The King is dead,
But, lo! the Heir is born!"
When fire of Youth, and sober trust of Age,
In Farmer, Soldier, Priest, and Sage,
Arose and cast upon her
Baptismal garments,—never robes so fair
Clad prince in Old-World air,—
Their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor!

II-4
Arise! Recrown thy head,
Radiant with blessings of the Dead!
Bear from this hallowed place
The prayer that purifies thy lips,
The light of courage that defies eclipse,
The rose of Man's new morning on thy face!
Let no iconoclast
Invade thy rising Pantheon of the Past,
To make a blank where Adams stood,
To touch the Father's sheathed and sacred blade,
Spoil crowns on Jefferson and Franklin laid,
Or wash from Freedom's feet the stain of Lincoln's blood!
Hearken, as from that haunted Hall
Their voices call:
"We lived and died for thee;
We greatly dared that thou might'st be:
So, from thy children still
We claim denials which at last fulfil,
And freedom yielded to preserve thee free!"
Beside clear-hearted Right
That smiles at Power's uplifted rod,
Plant Duties that requite,
And Order that sustains, upon thy sod,
And stand in stainless might
Above all self, and only less than God!

III-1
Here may thy solemn challenge end,
All-proving Past, and each discordance die
Of doubtful augury,
Or in one choral with the Present blend,
And that half-heard, sweet harmony
Of something nobler that our sons may see!
Though poignant memories burn
Of days that were, and may again return,
When thy fleet foot, O Huntress of the Woods,
The slippery brinks of danger knew,
And dim the eyesight grew
That was so sure in thine old solitudes,—
Yet stays some richer sense
Won from the mixture of thine elements,
To guide the vagrant scheme,
And winnow truth from each conflicting dream!
Yet in thy blood shall live
Some force unspent, some essence primitive,
To seize the highest use of things;
For Fate, to mould thee to her plan,
Denied thee food of kings,
Withheld the udder and the orchard-fruits,
Fed thee with savage roots,
And forced thy harsher milk from barren breasts of man!

III-2
O sacred Woman-Form,
Of the first People's need and passion wrought,—
No thin, pale ghost of Thought,
But fair as Morning and as heart's-blood warm,—
Wearing thy priestly tiar on Judah's hills;
Clear-eyed beneath Athene's helm of gold;
Or from Rome's central seat
Hearing the pulses of the Continents beat
In thunder where her legions rolled;
Compact of high heroic hearts and wills,
Whose being circles all
The selfless aims of men, and all fulfils;
Thyself not free, so long as one is thrall;
Goddess, that as a Nation lives,
And as a Nation dies,
That for her children as a man defies,
And to her children as a mother gives,—
Take our fresh fealty now!
No more a Chieftainess, with wampum-zone
And feather-cinctured brow,—
No more a new Britannia, grown
To spread an equal banner to the breeze,
And lift thy trident o'er the double seas;
But with unborrowed crest,
In thine own native beauty dressed,—
The front of pure command, the unflinching eye, thine own!

III-3
Look up, look forth, and on!
There's light in the dawning sky:
The clouds are parting, the night is gone:
Prepare for the work of the day!
Fallow thy pastures lie,
And far thy shepherds stray,
And the fields of thy vast domain
Are waiting for purer seed
Of knowledge, desire, and deed,
For keener sunshine and mellower rain!
But keep thy garments pure:
Pluck them back, with the old disdain,
From touch of the hands that stain!
So shall thy strength endure.
Transmute into good the gold of Gain,
Compel to beauty thy ruder powers,
Till the bounty of coming hours
Shall plant, on thy fields apart,
With the oak of Toil, the rose of Art!
Be watchful, and keep us so:
Be strong, and fear no foe:
Be just, and the world shall know!
With the same love love us, as we give;
And the day shall never come,
That finds us weak or dumb
To join and smite and cry
In the great task, for thee to die,
And the greater task, for thee to live!

Bayard Taylor.

Richard Henry Lee, grandson of the mover of the Declaration, came to the front with the original document in his hands, and read its sonorous sentences. William M. Evarts delivered an oration and "Our National Banner," words by Dexter Smith, music by Sir Julius Benedict, was sung.

OUR NATIONAL BANNER

[July 4, 1876]

O'er the high and o'er the lowly
Floats that banner bright and holy
In the rays of Freedom's sun,
In the nation's heart embedded,
O'er our Union newly wedded,
One in all, and all in one.

Let that banner wave forever,
May its lustrous stars fade never,
Till the stars shall pale on high;
While there's right the wrong defeating,
While there's hope in true hearts beating,
Truth and freedom shall not die.

As it floated long before us,
Be it ever floating o'er us,
O'er our land from shore to shore:
There are freemen yet to wave it,
Millions who would die to save it,
Wave it, save it, evermore.

Dexter Smith.

The exposition closed November 10, 1876. It had served to draw all sections of the country more closely together, and to establish the industrial position of the United States among the nations of the world.

AFTER THE CENTENNIAL

(A HOPE)

Before our eyes a pageant rolled
Whose banners every land unfurled;
And as it passed, its splendors told
The art and glory of the world.

The nations of the earth have stood
With face to face and hand in hand,
And sworn to common brotherhood
The sundered souls of every land.

And while America is pledged
To light her Pharos towers for all,
While her broad mantle, starred and edged
With truth, o'er high and low shall fall;

And while the electric nerves still belt
The State and Continent in one,—
The discords of the past shall melt
Like ice beneath the summer sun.

O land of hope! thy future years
Are shrouded from our mortal sight;
But thou canst turn the century's fears
To heralds of a cloudless light!

The sacred torch our fathers lit
No wild misrule can ever quench;
Still in our midst wise judges sit,
Whom party passion cannot blench.

From soul to soul, from hand to hand
Thy sons have passed that torch along,
Whose flame by Wisdom's breath is fanned
Whose staff is held by runners strong.

O Spirit of immortal truth,
Thy power alone that circles all
Can feed the fire as in its youth—
Can hold the runners lest they fall!

Christopher Pearse Cranch.

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