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An ode read at the New York City Hall, July 4, 1911
I LET there be prayer and praise | |
| On these worn stones and on these trodden ways; | |
| For all around | |
| Is holy ground, | |
| Ground that departed years | 5 |
| Have hallowed with high dreams | |
| (Freedom’s immortal themes)— | |
| Made sacred, too, with fall of noble tears. | |
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II Let there be prayer and praise, | |
| For here once, in the old, heroic days, | 10 |
| Appeared our Washington, | |
| (Time had no nobler son!) | |
| And here, beneath these lifted skies, he heard | |
| From the new page God’s last oracular word— | |
| The word the Bell of Liberty gave tongue— | 15 |
| The word forever old, forever young— | |
| The cry, “Let Freedom be | |
| On land, on sea!” | |
| It was the great word that had sounded on | |
| From far Thermopylae and Marathon. | 20 |
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III Here they brought Lincoln, dead but deathless—here, | |
| When hate had torn the April from the year. | |
| Here on that darkened day | |
| They brought the martyr on his homeward way; | |
| And in this storied place | 25 |
| They laid him with his hushed, heroic face, | |
| With all the patient mercies of his look | |
| Still written there as in the Judgment Book— | |
| A great soul that had greatly lived, and then, | |
| Dying, sent out his greatness upon men. | 30 |
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IV And here with stately step and measured chant, | |
| They brought our stern, sad, silent soldier, Grant; | |
| Only a little more stilled, a little more | |
| Than he had been on life’s loud ways before. | |
| He was no babbler by the noisy gate: | 35 |
| Only in deeds was he articulate— | |
| Strong to strike blows that Righteousness might live— | |
| Strong also to forgive. | |
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V So here where we have brought our greatest dead, | |
| Here is a shrine, here is an altar spread, | 40 |
| Where we may consecrate our hearts again | |
| To their high hopes for men; | |
| Knowing our heroes watch us from their spheres, | |
| Still touched by mortal tears— | |
| Knowing they watch us with their serious eyes, | 45 |
| There where the deathless climb the deathless skies. | |
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