| |
| SHE rose amid the Nations, tall and fair, | |
| The wide South seas kissed at her garment hem, | |
| Lights of new heavens gleamed in her lustrous hair, | |
| Freedom her diadem! | |
| |
| And on her bosom, Time’s glad prophecy, | 5 |
| Six stars that into one rich radiance ran, | |
| Her Urim and her Thummim of the free | |
| Young Commonwealth of Man: | |
| |
| And in her raiment, curiously inwrought, | |
| Opal and sapphire, gems of price untold, | 10 |
| Pearl from far wave, and, through deep mine-shaft sought, | |
| The shimmering glow of gold: | |
| |
| And magic colours blent of range and dell | |
| And pasture where the sportive lambs may bleat, | |
| And subtlest tints—no poet’s tongue can tell— | 15 |
| From sun-kissed fields of wheat. | |
| |
| Too confident of beauty to be proud, | |
| Too satisfied and young to doubt or pray, | |
| Her open glance and buoyant will unbowed | |
| Fronted the broadening day. | 20 |
| |
| Her face uplifted and her brave bold eyes | |
| Gazed on into the future unafraid,— | |
| No mystic depths of reverence, awe, surprise, | |
| No Past to make dismayed! | |
| |
| No martyr-moan from pyre or battle-plain | 25 |
| Had seamed that beauty, frank and debonair, | |
| No sobbings from Gethsemanes of pain, | |
| No midnights of despair— | |
| |
| Changed into morns of triumph, when the day | |
| Saw men like gods, but featured homelier far, | 30 |
| As, in the pass, by mazed Thermopylae | |
| Or glorious Trafalgar. | |
| |
| And, all-accustomed to her wide-wayed sea | |
| And amplest spaces and unhindered room, | |
| She faltered not to meet her destiny | 35 |
| Nor reck’d of gathering Doom. | |
| |
| But at her girdle hung an opening scroll, | |
| On whose white virgin folds might yet be writ | |
| Tales of high deeds, transcending utmost goal | |
| Of Man’s prophetic wit. | 40 |
| |
| And at her feet the Ocean yearned away | |
| To East and North, and Southward without bound, | |
| And Westward where the sequent Night and Day | |
| Circled the great world round. | |
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