| |
| WIDE open and unguarded stand our gates, | |
| Named of the four winds, North, South, East, and West; | |
| Portals that lead to an enchanted land | |
| Of cities, forests, fields of living gold, | |
| Vast prairies, lordly summits touched with snow, | 5 |
| Majestic rivers sweeping proudly past | |
| The Arab’s date-palm and the Norseman’s pine— | |
| A realm wherein are fruits of every zone, | |
| Airs of all climes, for, lo! throughout the year | |
| The red rose blossoms somewhere—a rich land, | 10 |
| A later Eden planted in the wilds, | |
| With not an inch of earth within its bound | |
| But if a slave’s foot press it sets him free. | |
| Here, it is written, Toil shall have its wage, | |
| And Honor honor, and the humblest man | 15 |
| Stand level with the highest in the law. | |
| Of such a land have men in dungeons dreamed, | |
| And with the vision brightening in their eyes | |
| Gone smiling to the fagot and the sword. | |
| |
| Wide open and unguarded stand our gates, | 20 |
| And through them presses a wild motley throng— | |
| Men from the Volga and the Tartar steppes, | |
| Featureless figures of the Hoang-Ho, | |
| Malayan, Scythian, Teuton, Kelt, and Slav, | |
| Flying the Old World’s poverty and scorn; | 25 |
| These bringing with them unknown gods and rites,— | |
| Those, tiger passions, here to stretch their claws. | |
| In street and alley what strange tongues are loud, | |
| Accents of menace alien to our air, | |
| Voices that once the Tower of Babel knew! | 30 |
| |
| O Liberty, white Goddess! is it well | |
| To leave the gates unguarded? On thy breast | |
| Fold Sorrow’s children, soothe the hurts of fate, | |
| Lift the down-trodden, but with hand of steel | |
| Stay those who to thy sacred portals come | 35 |
| To waste the gifts of freedom. Have a care | |
| Lest from thy brow the clustered stars be torn | |
| And trampled in the dust. For so of old | |
| The thronging Goth and Vandal trampled Rome, | |
| And where the temples of the Cæsars stood | 40 |
| The lean wolf unmolested made her lair. | |
| |
