America The Beautiful
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine!
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
Not Yet
NOT yet hath Nature, lovely colorist,
Bestirred her from creative dream to fling
Soft flame upon the woods, —nay, not to dip
One pleading maple-tip
In carmine; all the waiting world is whist,
Alert to hear the first faint flutes of spring.
Not yet the tingling flood of blue and gold
Is poured through heaven, but o'er the misty pond,
Quiet as patterned silk, flushed saplings lean;
And the auspicious green
Through the deep woods and on the unpathed wold
Brightens in patient moss and wistful frond.
Not yet cascades of melody invoke
The holy dawn, but all the air perceives,
By some fine thrill, the rushing northward flight
Of myriad wings, despite
The nonchalances of this crookback oak,
Still clinging to its russet shreds of leaves.
Not yet the laughing hid-folk of the earth
Thrust Up white helm and golden coronet,
Sweet elfin host armored in gossamer,
But gentle tremors stir
The conscious mold; new beauty comes to birth
Under the snow's fast-melting coverlet.
Not yet, not yet the yearly miracle
Is wrought, but ecstasy is on the wing,
And her divine, irrevocable flight
Is swift as all delight.
The heart is hushed as for the sacring-bell,
Awe-smitten by expectancy of spring.
To My Country
O dear my Country, beautiful and dear,
Love cloth not darken sight.
God looketh through Love's eyes, whose vision clear
Beholds more flaws than keenest Hate hath known.
Nor is Love's judgment gentle, but austere;
The heart of Love must break ere it condone
One stain upon the white.
There comes an hour when on the parent turns
The challenge of the child;
The bridal passion for perfection burns;
Life gives her last allegiance to the best;
Each sweet idolatry the spirit spurns,
Once more enfranchised for its starry quest
Of beauty undefiled.
Love must be one with honor; yet to-day
Love liveth by a sign;
Allows no lasting compromise with clay,
But tends the mounting miracle of gold,
Content with service till the bud make way
To the rejoicing sunbeams that unfold
Its culminant divine.
There is a rumoring among the stars,
A trouble in the sun.
Freedom, most holy word, hath fallen at jars
With her own deeds; 'tis Mammon's jubilee;
Again the cross contends with scimitars;
The seraphim look down with dread to see
Earth's noblest hope undone.
O dear my Country, beautiful and dear,
Ultimate dream of Time,
By all thy millions longing to revere
A pure, august, authentic commonweal,
Climb to the light. Imperiled Pioneer
Of Brotherhood among the nations, seal
Our faith with thy sublime.
To Heavy Hearts
HEAVY hearts, your jubilee
Droops about the Christmas Tree.
Sudden sighs cut off the laughter,
For a haunting pain comes after
All your gallant glee,
— Pain for your soldiers far away to-night,
(O cloud that darkens on the Christmas star!)
Sons, husbands, those who wreathed your world with light,
Far, far, so far.
Be comforted! They never were so near.
In life's deep center of self-sacrifice
You meet with vision clear.
There in love's purest paradise
The touch of soul on soul is close and dear.
Not to-night shall soft cheeks glow
Where the Druid mistletoe
Weaves its charm, while hollies twinkle;
For the lads in some grim wrinkle
Of the earth crouch low.
Hard is their Christmas in the aching trench,
Or in the listening darkness mounting guard,
Haggard with cold and sick with creeping stench,
— Hard, hard, so hard.
Be comforted! That hardness is their pride.
Salute the strength that can endure the stress
Of such a Christmastide.
Our earth made beautiful shall bless
Their stern young manhood nobly testified.
Silver chimes are on the air,
Sweet and blithe—too blithe to bear;
And what singing hearth rejoices,
Missing the belovèd voices
That were merriest there?
The booming cannon are their Christmas bells;
(O Holy Child, how many a homeless waif!)
Their carols are the hiss and crash of shells.
God keep them safe!
Be comforted! For safe they are within
His quiet hand, your soldiers who fulfil
In steadfast discipline,
Like those calm stars, His patient will
That is the peace beneath all battle-din.
