Hail To The Chief: Poem by Edward William Thomson

AGAIN we greet the patient heart,
The conference-guiding master-hand,
Who put illusive dreams apart,
And wrought as careful wisdom planned.
With welcoming hearts we strive in vain

To voice the unutterable cheers
That yearn for him whose works attain
For us the longing hopes of years.

For spirits twain possess the hearts
That hold our North from sea to sea;

The one a vigorous love imparts
Of self-dependent liberty,
The other, sweet with kinship’s thought,
Forever strives to bridge the main;
And all our country’s years were fraught


With hope to serve the spirits twain.

While cynics scorned the dual dream,
Proclaiming one must surely die,
Our lifted eyes beheld the gleam
Afar, of days now looming nigh;

The Voluntary Empire’s form
Of comrade commonwealths allied,
Stands fit, at last, to front the storm,
And thrust Time’s hurricane aside.

With countries Old and countries New,

All willing champions round the Throne,
With each to separate freedom true,
Yet shaped in league to hold their own;
We bless the Chief whose patriot soul
Held both our spirits reconciled,

And grasped the hour in firm control
When on our dreams Occasion smiled.

Analysis of this poem