[A] THE UNITED SEAS
The wise men from every land, believing
That unseen good is often
With great events allied unawares,
Must be asked to unfold the meaning
Involved in the uniting of the Earth's greatest seas.
* * * * *
For after aeons of isthmian neighborliness
And ages of barrier'd friendship,
Herculean genius has removed the mountain
And stubborn nature has yielded to the union of the Pacific
With the impetuous Atlantic,
To be commemorated with an apocalypse of light and color,
By the races assembled at the Golden Gate,
Within the natural sanctuary of our Bay,
Cathedralled by the mountains and the arching blue sky built o'er Immensity.
* * * * *
The petty Shylocks have not been invited
To be there with unfilled bags for gold,
Nor the sordid traffickers in human flesh,
To daily swarm a city's pits of hell
And by a lewd commerce augment their filthy gains.
Sad wretches! They that holy hour would misfit and defame.
For their hands, the jewels could finger
And the pageantry their eyes could observe
But their souls could never divine the sublime thought
Of the bridal of two vast seas.
* * * * *
So give way, blind temporizers!
For the seers and prophets have seen our star and have arrived
Rightly to interpret the emotions struggling for utterance in that unusual hour.
In these ominous words, silencing all speech:
"The Human mind is Leaving the Log Cabin and Statehouse
To Enter 'the Parliament of Man,' the Federation of the World."
* * * * *