Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1876-05-25
POETRY,
OUR CENTENNIAL.


Across the land which now is free,
And shook its bright folds to the world,
A newborn glory for the sea,
Her sons were faint, her ranks were few,
Feeble her power and weak her hand;
The nursing up to manhood grew,
And strodea giant DER the land
And now hundred years have fed
Since first that banner on the sky
Its glorious stars and stripes outspread,
A sign of hope and triumph nigh.
Its constellation, burning bright,
Has gained new stars from other spheres,
And caught the dawning of the light
Which flames along the endless years.
Its sons have brought the lightning down,
And harnessed it to do their will;
Its forts in every harbor frown,
Its thunders sleep on every hill;
Its power is felt on land and sea,
Its commerce sweeps across the tide,
And millions of the brave and free
Nestle beneath its shelter wide.
The weary centuries effete
Had grown through years of suffered wrong
Before the march of Freedoms feet
The Western world broke into song.
Art reared her temples in the land,
The Christians cross, the tapered spire,
Rose meath the touch of Labor's hand,
And glimmered in the sunsets FIRE.
The desert waste garden grew,
IN prairie land, in tangled fen
The world, astonished, paused to view
The grand creative power of men.
Three millions saw the dawning light
That blessd the land with Freedoms say,
And forty millions halls the sight
That breaks upon our eyes to-day.
The Old World bring her tribute here
To lay before the New Worlds shrine.
The tropics offering sincere
Its wealth of olives and of wine
Is laid before our feet to-day.
o happy omen, blessed sight
Where shown but dimly Freedoms ray,
The world transfgured lies in light.
One hundred Gears of Freedoms reign.
One hundred years of war and peace
A golden century again,
Bourgeons and blossoms. with increase.
Swift as the wind our couricrs fly
Across the land, from sea to sea;
In northern air, on tropic.sky,
Streams out the banner of the free.
And nesting meath each stripe and star,
Atlantic waves, Pacific foam,
Viewing the nations from afar,
Shout to their coming SWelcome home ~
Welcome Columbias arms spread wide,
She stands beside each busy mart,
And, thrilled with joy and touched with pride,
She folds the whole world to her heart.
No bond of sect, no tie of creed,
Can make or mar her generous plan;
The only plea that all must plead
The common brotherhood of man.
The diamond from Brazilian mines
CLEANS here by Afric's wealth of gold,
And silver from the long inclnes
Where Colorado's wealth is told
And Asia lays her treasures down,
Japan and India appear,
Bearing their offerings to crown
The fullness of our hundredth year.
Orient lands. where through the palms,
With ceaseless tone from morn till night,
The spicy breeZes hymn their psalms,
Goo give to you our boon of light
And make you free as we are free,
That, as the years shall disappear,
The West may reach across the sea
To join in your Centennial year
Your hundred years of freedom past,
Your thousand years of peace to come,
Unbroken by the warlike blast
OF trumpet, or the rolling drum.
o land Centennial today :.
God guard thee until time shall cease!
His blessings mover DER thy way,
And crown thee with His perfect peace,
o blood-bought landl Thy rocks and hills
Are Freedoms birthplace; and the arch
OF heaven, that bends above thy rills,
Is vocal with Times grandest march.
For down the coming hundred years
A hundred million unborn men
Close up each gap, where now appears
Avacant spot by hill or glen.
A hundred thousand homes shall rise,
With marts of trade, with lifted spires,
And in the light of Freedoms eyes
Forever burn thy altar fires
Il Il. Norman Guaaais0n, in ". Y. CEppeg