| |
| 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, | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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, | 15 |
| 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! | 20 |
| |
| 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! | |
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| So link thy ways to those of God, | 25 |
| 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, | 30 |
| Be thine the tribute of the years, | |
| The gift of Faith, the crown of Song! | |
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