The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1883-07-19
Our Country.
BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
We give thy natal day to hope,
0 country of our love and prayer.
Thy way is down no fatal slope,
But up to freer sun and air!
Tried as by furnace fires, and yet
BY Gods grace only stronger made,
To meet new tasks before thee set
Thou shalt not lack the old-time aid.
The fathers sleep; but men remain
As wise, rs true, as brave as they,
Why count the loss and not the gain?
The best is that we have to-day.
Whate'er of folly, shame, or crime
Within thy mighty bounds transpires,
With speed defying space and time
Comes to us on the accusing wires.
While of thy wealth of noble deeds,
Thy homes of peace, thy votes unsold,
Thy love that pleads for human needs,
The wrong redressed, but half is told
Each poor wretch, in his prison cell
Or gallOws-noose, is interviewed;
We know the single sinner well.
And not the nine and ninety good.
Yet, if on daily scandals fed
We seem at times to doubt thy worth,
We know thee still, when all is said,
The best and dearest spot on earth.
From the warm Mexico gulf. or where,
Belted with flowers, Los Angeles
Basks in the semi-tropc air,
To where katahdn's cedar trees
Are dwarfed and bent by northern Winds
Thy pIenty's horn is yearly filled
Alone, the rounding century finds
Thy liberal soil by free hands TILED.
A refuge for the wronged and poor,
Thy generous heart has borne the blame
That with them, through thy open door,
The old worlds evil outcasts came.
But, with thy just and equal rule,
And labor's need and breadth Of lands,
/ rec press and rostrum, church and school,
Thy sure, if slow, Transforming hands
Shall mould even them to thy design,
Making a blessing of the ban;
And freedoms chemistry combine
The alien elements of man.
The power that broke their prison bar
And set the dusky millions free,
And welded in the fame OF war
The Union fast to Liberty,
Shall it not deal with other ills,
Redress the red mans grievance, break
The Circean cup with shames and kills,
And Labor full requital make?
Alone to such as fifty bear
Thy civic honors bid them fall
And call thy daughters forth to share
The rights and duties pledged to al.
No lack was in thy primal stock,
No Weakling founders builded here;
Thine were the men of Plymouth Rock,
The Huguenot and Cavalier,
And they whose firm endurance gained
The freedom of the souls of men,
Whose hands, unstained with blood maintaine,
The swordless commonwealth of Penn.
And thine shall be the power of all
To dc the work which duty bids
And make the peoples council hall
As lasting rs the pyramids.
Well have thy later years made good
Thy braVe-sai1 word a century back,
The pledge of human brotherhood,
The equal claim Of white and black.
That word still echoes round the world,
And all who hear it turn to thee
And read upon thy flag unfurled
The prophecies of destiny
The great world-lesson all shall learn.
The nations in thy school shall sit,
Earths tarthest mountainous shall burn
With Watch-tires from thy own uplit.
Great without seeking to be great
BY fraud or conquest, rich in gold,
But richer in the large estate
OF virtue which thy children hold.
With peace that comes Of purity.
And strength to simple Justice due:
So runs our loyal dream Of thee;
GOD OF our fathers make it true.
O land of lands to thee we give
Our prayers, our hopes. our service free
For thee thy sons shall nobly live.
And at thy need shall die for thee