| |
| SHE is young and beautiful—my country— | |
| Mother of many children. | |
| Years ago, | |
| A slim girl running on sea sand, | |
| She heard Niagara shouting the message of mountains, | 5 |
| And the great lakes singing softly | |
| Of prairies that swing in the wind. | |
| How could she stay, keeping soft and white her rich and powerful hands? | |
| She rose and walked like the sun into the west: | |
| Sowing, reaping, felling the forests, | 10 |
| Digging out coal and iron and gold from the hills. | |
| Onward, outward— | |
| Past rivers like a sea, | |
| And mountains that snowily, secretly, kiss the moon— | |
| Out to shining Arizona athirst in the sun | 15 |
| And Oregon shaggy with firs by her northern ocean, | |
| Whom the silver Sierras link together forever. | |
| |
| And she gathered the children of many races into her arms, | |
| And said, “Hate dies here—be brothers.” | |
| She lifted the humble to the high place, | 20 |
| And the proud she rebuked with a laugh. | |
| |
| At ease in her strength she lay dreaming | |
| When the heat of the day was done. | |
| But suddenly—far away— | |
| Out of the thick black night, out of the past, | 25 |
| Came the terrible booming of guns, | |
| The tramp of armies marching over fallen towers, | |
| Over cottages collapsing into dust. | |
| And through the iron clamor she heard agony calling— | |
| The bitter cries of children starved and driven, | 30 |
| Of young girls ravished, | |
| Of boys ripped open on the trench-strung field; | |
| And the dull groans of the old | |
| Prodded from the flaming door. | |
| |
| Once more the incredible thing— | 35 |
| The tyrant gorged and ruthless | |
| Spitting red war in the face of the world! | |
| Once more Freedom at bay—threatened, defiant— | |
| Calling her chosen, | |
| Lifting her rainbow-colored flags to the sun! | 40 |
| |
| My country, | |
| Beautiful and strong, | |
| Startled, slowly arising, | |
| Hearing at last the insult, | |
| Feeling the crimson mist in her eyes, | 45 |
| My country stood up tall to the height of the world— | |
| Straight and tall, | |
| From the blue Caribbean at her feet | |
| To her coronal of islands | |
| Strung from the Arctic sea. | 50 |
| And she summoned her states, | |
| And breathed in their ears the iron vow of war— | |
| War to the end, to the death, war to the life, | |
| War of the free, for the free, till the world is freed. | |
| |
| She gathered her armies, | 55 |
| Her millions of sons, | |
| And loosed them like flakes of snow to the storm, | |
| Bidding them cover and smother and put out forever | |
| The abysmal abominable fires. | |
| In massive drifts she hurled them, | 60 |
| Over land and sea and through blue trails of air— | |
| Crystal souls of youth, | |
| That seized the sun in a flash | |
| And flung it to whatever eye would see, | |
| Spending, giving their light, lest it be put out in the wind. | 65 |
| She bade them move innumerably, mass on mass, | |
| To smother and quench forever the infernal fires, | |
| And nourish the new spring— | |
| The flower-fringed hope of the world. | |
| |
| O my country, | 70 |
| Seeker of freedom, | |
| How shall she pause in the ways of peace or war | |
| On her long march toward the far-off invisible goal— | |
| The city of white towers, | |
| The city of love, | 75 |
| Where the nations of the earth shall meet in joy together, | |
| And the souls of men shall be free! | |
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