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As the day-spring unbounded, thy splendor shall flow,
And earth's little kingdoms before thee shall bow;
While the ensigns of union, in triumph unfurled,
Hush the tumult of war and give peace to the world.

Thus, as down a lone valley, with cedars o'erspread,
From war's dread confusion I pensively strayed,
The gloom from the face of fair heaven retired;
The winds ceased to murmur; the thunders expired;
Perfumes as of Eden flowed sweetly along,

And a voice as of angels, enchantingly sung:
"Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise,

The queen of the world, and the child of the skies."

Timothy Dwight [1752-1817]

"OH MOTHER OF A MIGHTY RACE" ·

Oн mother of a mighty race,

Yet lovely in thy youthful grace!

The elder dames, thy haughty peers,
Admire and hate thy blooming years.
With words of shame

And taunts of scorn they join thy name.

For on thy cheeks the glow is spread
That tints thy morning hills with red;
Thy step-the wild deer's rustling feet
Within thy woods are not more fleet;
Thy hopeful eye

Is bright as thine own sunny sky.

Ay, let them rail-those haughty ones,
While safe thou dwellest with thy sons.
They do not know how loved thou art,
How many a fond and fearless heart
Would rise to throw

Its life between thee and the foe.

They know not, in their hate and pride,
What virtues with thy children bide;
How true, how good, thy graceful maids
Make bright, like flowers, the valley-shades;

What generous men

Spring, like thine oaks, by hill and glen;—

What cordial welcomes greet the guest
By thy lone rivers of the West;
How faith is kept, and truth revered,
And man is loved, and God is feared,
In woodland homes,

And where the ocean border foams.

There's freedom at thy gates and rest
For Earth's down-trodden and oppressed,
A shelter for the hunted head,

For the starved laborer toil and bread.

Power, at thy bounds,

Stops and calls back his baffled hounds.

Oh, fair young mother! on thy brow
Shall sit a nobler grace than now.
Deep in the brightness of the skies
The thronging years in glory rise,
And, as they fleet,

Drop strength and riches at thy feet.

William Cullen Bryant [1794-1878]

HYMN OF THE WEST

WORLD'S FAIR, ST. LOUIS, MO., 1904

O THOU, whose glorious orbs on high
Engird the earth with splendor round,

From out Thy secret place draw nigh
The courts and temples of this ground;
Eternal Light,

Fill with Thy might

These domes that in Thy purpose grew,
And lift a nation's heart anew!

Illumine Thou each pathway here,

To show the marvels God hath wrought!

Since first Thy people's chief and seer

Looked up with that prophetic thought,

Bade Time unroll

The fateful scroll,

And empire unto Freedom gave

From cloudland height to tropic wave.

Poured through the gateways of the North
Thy mighty rivers join their tide,

And, on the wings of morn sent forth,
Their mists the far-off peaks divide.
By Thee unsealed,

The mountains yield

Ores that the wealth of Ophir shame,
And gems enwrought of seven-hued flame.

Lo, through what years the soil hath lain,
At Thine own time to give increase-
The greater and the lesser grain,
The ripening boll, the myriad fleece!

Thy creatures graze
Appointed ways;

League after league across the land

The ceaseless herds obey Thy hand.

Thou, whose high archways shine most clear
Above the plenteous Western plain,
Thine ancient tribes from round the sphere
To breathe its quickening air are fain:
And smiles the sun

To see made one

Their brood throughout Earth's greenest space,
Land of the new and lordlier race!

Edmund Clarence Stedman [1833-1908]

CONCORD HYMN

SUNG AT THE COMPLETION OF THE BATTLE MONUMENT,
APRIL 19, 1836

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood, 1
And fired the shot heard round the world.

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The foe long since in silence slept;

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,

We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare

To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-1882]

BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC

MINE eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath

are stored;

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;

His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling

camps;

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and

damps;

I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;

His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel: "As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall

deal;

Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,

Since God is marching on."

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call re

treat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

Julia Ward Howe [1819-1910]

THE EAGLE'S SONG

THE lioness whelped, and the sturdy cub
Was seized by an eagle and carried up,
And homed for a while in an eagle's nest,
And slept for a while on an eagle's breast;
And the eagle taught it the eagle's song:

"To be staunch, and valiant, and free, and strong!"

The lion-whelp sprang from the eyrie nest,
From the lofty crag where the queen birds rest;

He fought the King on the spreading plain,
And drove him back o'er the foaming main.
He held the land as a thrifty chief,
And reared his cattle, and reaped his sheaf,
Nor sought the help of a foreign hand,
Yet welcomed all to his own free land!

Two were the sons that the country bore
To the Northern lakes and the Southern shore;
And Chivalry dwelt with the Southern son,
And Industry lived with the Northern one.

Tears for the time when they broke and fought!
Tears was the price of the union wrought!

And the land was red in a sea of blood,

Where brother for brother had swelled the flood!

And now that the two are one again,
Behold on their shield the word "Refrain!"

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