VI.

Long, long ago, beneath heaven's stormy slope, In deeds of faith and hope, Our fathers laid Freedom's foundations here, And raised, invisible, vast,— Embodying naught of doubt or fear, A monument whose greatness shall outlast The future, as the past, Of all the Old World's dynasties and kings.— A symbol of all things That we would speak, but cannot say in words, Of those who first began our Nation here, Behold, we now would rear! A different monument! a thought, that girds Itself with granite; dream made visible In rock and bronze to tell To all the Future what here once befell; Here where, unknown to them, A tree took root; a tree of wondrous stem; The tree of high ideals, which has grown, [Pg 11]And has not withered since its seed was sown, Was planted here by them in this new soil, Who watered it with tears and blood and toil: An heritage we mean to hold, Keeping it stanch and beautiful as of old.— For never a State, Or People, yet was great Without its great ideals;—branch and root Of the deep tree of life where bud and blow The dreams, the thoughts, that grow To deeds, the glowing fruit.

[Pg 11]

VII.

VII.

The morn, that breaks its heart of gold Above the purple hills; The eve, that spills Its nautilus splendor where the sea is rolled; The night, that leads the vast procession in Of stars and dreams,— The beauty that shall never die or pass:— [Pg 12]The winds, that spin Of rain the misty mantles of the grass, And thunder-raiment of the mountain-streams; The sunbeams, needling with gold the dusk Green cowls of ancient woods; The shadows, thridding, veiled with musk, The moon-pathed solitudes, Call to my Fancy, saying, "Follow! follow!" Till, following, I see,— Fair as a cascade in a rainbowed hollow,— A dream, a shape, take form, Clad on with every charm,— The vision of that Ideality, Which lured the pioneer in wood and hill, And beckoned him from earth and sky; The dream that cannot die, Their children's children did fulfill. In stone and iron and wood, Out of the solitude, And by a forthright act Create a mighty fact— [Pg 13]A Nation, now that stands Clad on with hope and beauty, strength and song, Eternal, young, and strong, Planting her heel on Wrong, Her starry banner in triumphant hands.... Within her face the rose Of Alleghany dawns; Limbed with Alaskan snows, Floridian starlight in her eyes,— Eyes stern as steel yet tender as a fawn's,— And in her hair The rapture of her rivers; and the dare, As perishless as truth, That o'er the crags of her Sierras flies, Urging the eagle ardor through her 

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