Peace, in her palace over the Atlantic,
From the New World deals her awards around,
While war's leashed hounds, a-strain, for bloodshed frantic,
In our Old World can scarce be held in bound.
Lo! here, each nation armed against its neighbor;
Cross in the face of Crescent reared for fight:
There to the blessed battlefields of labor
United States that all the world invite.
For a far different shock from the impingings
Of broadsides 'twixt a "Chesapeake" and "Shannon,"
The strife of Corliss and his monster engines,
With Cyclops Krupp and Essen's monster cannon.
Happy young Titan, that between two oceans,
Thy guardian Atlantic and Pacific,
Growest apart from our Old World's commotions —
With room to spread, and space for powers prolific.
Wisely exchanging rifles, swords, and rammers,
For spades and ploughshares, axes, saws, and treadles,
Thou putt'st thy strength in engines and steamhammers,
And thy gun-metal mouldest into medals.
Earth has no clime, no sky, but thou commandest;
No growth, but thy wide-spreading soil can bear;
No ore, but the rich ground on which thou standest,
Somewhere or other, bids thee stoop and share.
No height thou hast but all thy sons may reach;
No good, but all are free to reap its profit:
No truth, but all thy race may learn and teach,
No lie, but whoso lifts its mask may scoff it.
Oh happy in thy stars, still rising higher,
Happy e'en in thy stripes so lightly borne.
How far may thy meridian growth aspire,
That showest so majestic in thy morn?
To what height may not Heaven's high favor lead thee,
In cycle of the ages yet to be,
When these first hundred years of life have made thee,
For arts and strength, the giant that we see!
