Our Country
by Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) |
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ON primal rocks she wrote her name;
Her towers were
reared on holy graves;
The golden seed that bore her came
Swift-winged with prayer o'er ocean waves.
The Forest
bowed his solemn crest,
And open flung his sylvan doors;
Meek Rivers led the appointed guest
To clasp the
wide-embracing shores;
Till, fold by fold, the
broidered land
To swell her virgin vestments grew,
While sages, strong in heart and hand,
Her virtue's fiery
girdle drew.
O Exile of the wrath of kings!
O
Pilgrim Ark of Liberty!
The refuge of divinest things,
Their record must abide in thee!
First in the glories
of thy front
Let the crown-jewel, Truth, be found;
Thy
right hand fling, with generous wont,
Love's happy chain
to farthest bound!
Let Justice, with the faultless
scales,
Hold fast the worship of thy sons;
Thy
Commerce spread her shining sails
Where no dark tide of
rapine runs!
So link thy ways to those of God,
So
follow firm the heavenly laws,
That stars may greet thee,
warrior-browed,
And storm-sped angels hail thy cause!
O Land, the measure of our prayers,
Hope of the world
in grief and wrong,
Be thine the tribute of the years,
The gift of Faith, the crown of Song! |
By Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)
Listed March 19, 2014 |
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