Classic Poem

I

Many the lands that the true-hearted honor,
Many the banners that blow on the sea;
Ah, but one only — God's blessing upon her! —
Must be forever the fairest to me;
Dear for her mountains, rock-based, cloudy-crested,
Hooded with snow in the ardors of June,
Haunts where the bald-headed eagle has nested,
Staring full hard on his neighbor, the moon;
Dear for her vineyards and jessamine gardens,
Forests of fir where the winter wakes;
Dear for her oceans, her twin grey wardens;
Dear for her girdle of amethyst lakes;
Dear for the song of the wind when it crosses
Sunshiny prairies a-ripple with wheat;
Nay, I could kiss but the least of her mosses,
Sweet as the touch of a mother is sweet.

II

Silver and gold that the aeons had hidden
For the pleasure of man ere his likeness arose;
Coal in whose blackness the flame lay forbidden;
Let not her treasure be counted by those.
Richer she deemeth her heirdom of labor,
Her heraldry blazoned in chisel and saw,
Tradition of councils where neighbor with neighbor
Forgathered to fashion the settlement law.
Peace to the homespun, the heroes who wore it.
Whose patriot passion in stormy career
Swept back the redcoats seaward before it,
Like wind-driven leaves in the wane of the year.
Peace be to all who have suffered or striven,
Fought for her, thought for her, wrought for her till
She hath grown great with the life they have given,
She must be noble their faith to fulfill.

III

Tell me not now of the blots that bestain her
Beautiful vestments, that sully the white.
Though to-day hath the wrong been gainer,
To-morrow's victory crowns the right.
Still through error and shame and censure
She urges onward with straining breast,
For her face is set to the great adventure,
Her feet are vowed to the utmost quest.
Bright is the star, though the mists may dim her;
Mists are fleeting, but stars endure;
Yet, ah, yet shall the golden glimmer
Wax to a splendor superb and pure.
To her shall our prayer be as pulsing pinions;
A winged sphere she shall soar above
Greed of gain and of forced dominions
To the upper heaven whose law is love.

IV

Land of Hope, be it thine to fashion
In joy and beauty the toiler's day;
Wear on thine heart the white rose of compassion;
Show the world a more gracious way.
Still by the need of that seed of the nation,
Cavaliers leaping with laughter to land,
Puritans kneeling, in stern consecration,
Parent by child, on their desolate strand,
Still by the stress of those seekers storm-driven,
Glad in strange waters their vessels to moor,
Open thy gates, O thou favored of Heaven,
Open thy gates to the homeless and poor.
So shalt thou garner the gifts of the ages,
From the Norlands their vigor, the Southlands their grace,
In a mystical blending of souls that presages
The birth of earth's rarest, undreamable race.