O LAND BELOVED
From "My Country"
O Land beloved!
My Country, dear, my own!
May the young heart that moved
For the weak words atone;
The mighty lyre not mine, nor the full breath of song!
To happier sons shall these belong.
Yet doth the first and lonely voice
Of the dark dawn the heart rejoice,
While still the loud choir sleeps upon the bough;
And never greater love salutes thy brow
Than his, who seeks thee now.
Alien the sea and salt the foam
Where'er it bears him from his home;
And when he leaps to land,
A lover treads the strand;
Precious is every stone;
No little inch of all the broad domain
But he would stoop to kiss, and end his pain,
Feeling thy lips make merry with his own;
But oh, his trembling reed too frail
To bear thee Time's All-Hail!
Faint is my heart, and ebbing with the passion of thy praise!
The poets come who cannot fail;
Happy are they who sing thy perfect days!
Happy am I who see the long night ended.
In the shadows of the age that bore me,
All the hopes of mankind blending,
Earth awaking, heaven descending,
While the new day steadfastly
Domes the blue deeps over thee!
Happy am I who see the Vision splendid
In the glowing of the dawn before me,
All the grace of heaven blending,
Man arising, Christ descending,
While God's hand in secrecy
Builds thy bright eternity.
George Edward Woodberry.
So America faces the future unafraid,—confident that her problems will be wisely solved, that a splendid destiny awaits her, and that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
THE REPUBLIC
From "The Building of the Ship"
Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'Tis of the wave and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee,—are all with thee!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.