Oh! not yet
May’st thou unbrace thy corslet, nor lay by
Thy sword; nor yet, O Freedom! close thy lids
In slumber; for thine enemy never sleeps,
And thou must watch and combat till the day
Of the new earth and heaven.
That combat is still on; the right of the subject—including woman—to a voice in the government, the right of the laborer to a fair return on his work, and the right of the smaller nation to undisturbed independence are among the uppermost problems that occupy the mind of the world to-day.
Like many of his thoughtful countrymen Bryant founded his loyalty to America on the hope that in this new land the seed of new truth would fall on fertile soil. In “Earth,” composed when he was in Italy, he wrote:
O thou,
Who sittest far beyond the Atlantic deep,