O LAND, of every land the best— | |
| O Land, whose glory shall increase; | |
| Now in your whitest raiment drest | |
| For the great festival of peace: | |
| |
| Take from your flag its fold of gloom, | 5 |
| And let it float undimmed above, | |
| Till over all our vales shall bloom | |
| The sacred colors that we love. | |
| |
| On mountain high, in valley low, | |
| Set Freedom’s living fires to burn; | 10 |
| Until the midnight sky shall show | |
| A redder pathway than the morn. | |
| |
| Welcome, with shouts of joy and pride, | |
| Your veterans from the war-path’s track; | |
| You gave your boys, untrained, untried; | 15 |
| You bring them men and heroes back! | |
| |
| And shed no tear, though think you must | |
| With sorrow of the martyred band; | |
| Not even for him whose hallowed dust | |
| Has made our prairies holy land. | 20 |
| |
| Though by the places where they fell, | |
| The places that are sacred ground, | |
| Death, like a sullen sentinel, | |
| Paces his everlasting round. | |
| |
| Yet when they set their country free | 25 |
| And gave her traitors fitting doom, | |
| They left their last great enemy, | |
| Baffled, beside an empty tomb. | |
| |
| Not there, but risen, redeemed, they go | |
| Where all the paths are sweet with flowers; | 30 |
| They fought to give us peace, and lo! | |
| They gained a better peace than ours. | |
| |
