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| O FAIR young land, the youngest, fairest far | |
| Of which our world can boast— | |
| Whose guardian planet, evening’s silver star, | |
| Illumes thy golden coast,— | |
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| How art thou conquered, tamed in all the pride | 5 |
| Of savage beauty still! | |
| How brought, O panther of the splendid hide, | |
| To know thy master’s will! | |
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| No more thou sittest on thy tawny hills | |
| In indolent repose; | 10 |
| Or pourest the crystal of a thousand rills | |
| Down from thy house of snows. | |
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| But where the wild oats wrapped thy knees in gold, | |
| The plowman drives his share, | |
| And where, through cañons deep, thy streams are rolled, | 15 |
| The miner’s arm is bare. | |
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| Yet in thy lap, thus rudely rent and torn, | |
| A nobler seed shall be; | |
| Mother of mighty men, thou shalt not mourn | |
| Thy lost virginity! | 20 |
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| Thy human children shall restore the grace | |
| Gone with thy fallen pines; | |
| The wild, barbaric beauty of thy face | |
| Shall round to classic lines. | |
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| And order, justice, social law shall curb | 25 |
| Thy untamed energies; | |
| And art and science, with their dreams superb, | |
| Replace thine ancient ease. | |
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| The marble, sleeping in thy mountains now, | |
| Shall live in sculptures rare; | 30 |
| Thy native oak shall crown the sage’s brow— | |
| Thy bay, the poet’s hair. | |
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| Thy tawny hills shall bleed their purple wine, | |
| Thy valleys yield their oil; | |
| And music, with her eloquence divine, | 35 |
| Persuade thy sons to toil. | |
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| Till Hesper, as he trims his silver beam, | |
| No happier land shall see, | |
| And earth shall find her old Arcadian dream | |
| Restored again in thee! | 40 |
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