William Jewett Pabodie (1813–1870)

OUR country!—’tis a glorious land—

With broad arms stretch’d from shore to shore;

The proud Pacific chafes her strand,

She hears the dark Atlantic roar;

And nurtured on her ample breast,

How many a goodly prospect lies

In nature’s wildest grandeur drest,

Enamelled with her loveliest dyes.

Rich prairies, deck’d with flowers of gold,

Like sunlit oceans, roll afar;

Broad lakes her azure heavens behold,

Reflecting clear each trembling star,

And mighty rivers, mountain born,

Go sweeping onward, dark and deep,

Through forests, where the bounding fawn

Beneath their sheltering branches leap.

And cradled mid her clustering hills,

Sweet vales in dream-like beauty hide,

Where love the air with music fills,

And calm content and peace abide;

For plenty here her fulness pours,

In rich profusion o’er the land;

And sent to seize her generous stores,

There prowls no tyrant’s hireling band.

Great God! we thank thee for this home—

This bounteous birth-land of the free;

Where wanderers from afar may come,

And breathe the air of Liberty.

Still may her flowers untrampled spring,

Her harvests wave—her cities rise;

And yet till Time shall fold his wing,

Remain earth’s loveliest Paradise!