to glean your harvest from the wave;
In your heritage of air and water,
You have kept the freedom Nature gave.
Even so the wild-woods of Manhattan
Saw your wheeling flocks of white and gray;
Even so you fluttered, followed, floated,
Round the Half-Moon creeping up the bay;
Even so your voices creaked and chattered.
Laughing shrilly o’er the tidal rips,
While your black and beady eyes were glistening
Round the sullen British prison-ships.
Children of the elemental mother,
Fearless floaters ’mid the double blue,
From the crowded boats that cross the ferries
Many a longing heart goes out to you.
Though the cities climb and close around us,
Something tells us that our souls are free,
While the sea-gulls fly above the harbour,
While the river flows to meet the sea!
Urbs Coronata
(Song for the City College of New York)
O youngest of the giant brood
Of cities far-renowned;
In wealth and glory thou hast passed
Thy rivals at a bound;
Thou art a mighty queen, New York;
And how wilt thou be crowned?
“Weave me no palace-wreath of Pride,”
The royal city said;
“Nor forge of frowning fortress-walls
A helmet for my head;
But let me wear a diadem
Of Wisdom’s towers instead.”
She bowed herself, she spent herself,
She wrought her will forsooth,
And set upon her island height
A citadel of Truth,
A house of Light, a home of Thought,
A shrine of noble Youth.
Stand here, ye City College towers,
And look both up and down;
Remember all who wrought for you
Within the toiling town;
Remember all their hopes for you,
And be the City’s Crown.
America
I love thine inland seas,
Thy groves of giant trees,
Thy rolling plains;
Thy rivers’ mighty sweep,
Thy mystic canyons deep,
Thy mountains wild and steep,
All thy domains;
Thy silver Eastern strands,
Thy Golden Gate that stands
Wide to the West;
Thy flowery Southland fair,
Thy sweet and crystal air—
O land beyond compare,
Thee I love best!
Doors of Daring
The mountains that inclose the vale
With walls of granite, steep and high,
Invite the fearless foot to scale
Their stairway toward the sky.
The restless, deep, dividing sea
That flows and foams from shore to shore,
Calls to its sun-burned chivalry,
“Push out, set sail, explore!”
The bars of life at which we fret,
That seem to prison and control,
Are but the doors of daring, set
Ajar before the soul.
Say not, “Too poor,” but freely give;
Sigh not, “Too weak,” but boldly try;
You never can begin to live
Until you dare to die.
A Home Song
I read within a poet’s book
A word that starred the page:
“Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage!”
Yes, that is true, and something more:
You’ll find, where’er you roam,
That marble floors and gilded walls
Can never make a home.
But every house where Love abides,
And Friendship is a guest,
Is surely home, and home-sweet-home:
For there the heart can rest.
A Noon Song
There are songs for the morning and songs for the night,
For sunrise and sunset, the stars and the moon;
But who will give praise to the fulness of light,
And sing us a song of the glory of noon?
Oh, the high noon, the clear noon,
The noon with golden crest;
When the blue sky burns, and the great sun turns
With his face to the way of the west!
How swiftly he rose in the dawn of his strength!
How slowly he crept as the morning wore by!
Ah, steep was the climbing that led him at length
To the height of his throne in the wide summer sky.
Oh, the long toil, the slow toil,
The toil that may not rest,
Till the sun looks down from his journey’s crown,
To the wonderful way of the west!
Then a quietness falls over meadow and hill,
The wings of the wind in the forest are furled,
The river runs softly, the birds are all still,
The workers are resting all over the world.
Oh, the good hour, the kind hour,
The hour that calms the breast!
Little inn half-way on the road of the day,
Where it follows the turn to the west!
There’s a plentiful feast in the maple-tree shade,
The lilt of a song to an old-fashioned tune,
The talk of a friend, or the kiss of a maid,
To sweeten the cup that we drink to the noon.
Oh, the deep noon, the full noon,
Of all the day the best!
When the blue sky burns, and the great sun turns
To his home by the way of the west!
“America for Me”
’Tis fine to see the Old World, and travel up and down
Among the famous palaces and cities of renown,
To admire the crumbly castles and the statues of the kings—
But now I think I’ve had enough of antiquated things.
So it’s home again, and home again, America for me!
My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be,
In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.
Oh, London is a man’s town, there’s power in the air;
And Paris is a woman’s town, with flowers in her hair;
And it’s sweet to dream in Venice, and it’s great to study Rome;
But when it comes to living there is no place like home.
I like the German fir-woods, in green battalions drilled;
I like the gardens of Versailles with flashing fountains filled;
But, oh, to take your hand, my dear, and ramble for a day
In the friendly western woodland where Nature has her way!
I know that Europe’s wonderful, yet something seems to lack:
The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back.
But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free—
We love our land for what she is and what she is to be.
Oh, it’s home again, and home again, America for me!
I want a ship that’s westward bound to plough the rolling sea,
To the blessèd Land of Room Enough beyond the
