veins, Behold her where, Around her radiant youth, The spirits of the cataracts and plains, The genii of the floods and forests, meet, In rainbow mists circling her brow and feet: The forces vast that sit [Pg 14]In session round her; powers paraclete, That guard her presence; awful forms and fair. Making secure her place; Guiding her surely as the worlds through space Do laws sidereal; edicts, thunder-lit, Of skyed eternity, in splendor borne On planetary wings of night and morn.

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[Pg 14]

VIII.

VIII.

Behold her! this is she! Beautiful as morning on the summer sea, Yet terrible as is the elemental gold That cleaves the tempest and in angles clings About its cloudy temples.—Manifold The dreams of daring in her fearless gaze, Fixed on the future's days; And round her brow, a strand of astral beads, Her soul's resplendent deeds; And at her front one star, Refulgent hope, [Pg 15]Like that on morning's slope, Beaconing the world afar.— From her high place she sees Her long procession of accomplished acts. Cloud-wing'd refulgences Of thoughts in steel and stone, of marble dreams, Lift up tremendous battlements, Sun-blinding, built of facts; While in her soul she seems, Listening, to hear, as from innumerable tents, Æonian thunder, wonder, and applause Of all the heroic ages that are gone; Feeling secure That, as her Past, her Future shall endure, As did her Cause When redly broke the dawn Of fierce rebellion, and, beneath its star, The firmaments of war Poured down infernal rain, And North and South lay bleeding 'mid their slain. And now, no less, shall her Cause still prevail, [Pg 16]More so in peace than war, Through the thrilled wire and electric rail, Carrying her message far; Shaping her dream Within the brain of steam, That, with a myriad hands, Labors unceasingly, and knits her lands In firmer union; joining plain and stream With steel; and binding shore to shore With bands of iron;—nerves and arteries, Along whose adamant forever pour Her concrete thoughts, her tireless energies.

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