A Day
Grant us thy bright creative power
As long as day still gloweth!
Keen is our heart, but time is short.
Oh, hark to our imploring,—
Thou whom our fathers once would court,—
On us thy radiance pouring.
Go forth, go forth, thou new-born day,
With morning-song and hammer-play.
May dusk-fear come not o'er us!
Kindle brave strife, our hearth-stone guard;
Send, lightning-like, a spirit sword
To flash the road before us!
Shine far across our folk and land,
Make rich our soul, make firm our hand,
So that with gladness we may bear
Such years as age shall bring,
And still like sowers onward fare
Into the world's new Spring!
As long as day still gloweth!
Keen is our heart, but time is short.
Oh, hark to our imploring,—
Thou whom our fathers once would court,—
On us thy radiance pouring.
Go forth, go forth, thou new-born day,
With morning-song and hammer-play.
May dusk-fear come not o'er us!
Kindle brave strife, our hearth-stone guard;
Send, lightning-like, a spirit sword
To flash the road before us!
Shine far across our folk and land,
Make rich our soul, make firm our hand,
So that with gladness we may bear
Such years as age shall bring,
And still like sowers onward fare
Into the world's new Spring!
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