| |
| OH! is it bale-fire in thy brazen hand— | |
| The traitor-light set on betraying coasts | |
| To lure to doom the mariner? Art thou | |
| Indeed that Freedom, gracious and supreme, | |
| By France once sighted over seas of blood— | 5 |
| A beacon to the ages, and their hope, | |
| A star against the midnight of the race, | |
| A vision, an announcement? Art thou she | |
| For whom our fathers fought at Lexington | |
| And trod the ways of death at Gettysburg? | 10 |
| Thy torch is lit, thy steadfast hand upheld, | |
| Before our ocean-portals. For a sign | |
| Men set thee there to welcome—loving men, | |
| With faith in man. Thou wast upraised to tell, | |
| To simple souls that seek from over-seas | 15 |
| Our rumored liberty, that here no chains | |
| Are on the people, here no kings can stand, | |
| Nor the old tyranny confound mankind, | |
| Sapping with craft the ramparts of the Law | |
| For such, O high presentment of their dream! | 20 |
| Thy pathless sandals wait upon the stone, | |
| Thy tranquil face looks evermore to sea: | |
| Now turn, and know the treason at thy back! | |
| Turn to the anarchs’ turrets, and behold | |
| The cunning ones that reap where others sow! | 25 |
| |
| In those great strongholds lifted to the sun | |
| They plot dominion. Thronèd greeds conspire, | |
| Half allied in a brotherhood malign, | |
| Against the throneless many.… | |
| |
| Would One might pour within thy breast of bronze | 30 |
| Spirit and life! Then should thy loyal hand | |
| Cast down its torch, and thy deep voice should cry: | |
| “Turn back! Turn back, O liberative ships! | |
| Be warned, ye voyagers! From tyranny | |
| To vaster tyranny ye come! Ye come | 35 |
| From realms that in my morning twilight wait | |
| My radiant invasion. But these shores | |
| Have known me and renounced me. I am raised | |
| In mockery, and here the forfeit day | |
| Deepens to West, and my indignant Star | 40 |
| Would hide her shame with darkness and the sea— | |
| A sun of doom forecasting on the Land | |
| The shadow of the sceptre and the sword.” | |
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