Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/249

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BOSTON
213

We plant and build by foaming seas
A city of the poor;—
For day by day could Boston Bay
Their honest labor overpay.


We grant no dukedoms to the few,
We hold like rights, and shall;—
Equal on Sunday in the pew,
On Monday in the mall,
For what avail the plough or sail,
Or land or life, if freedom fail?


The noble craftsman we promote,
Disown the knave and fool;
Each honest man shall have his vote,
Each child shall have his school.
A union then of honest men,
Or union never more again.


The wild rose and the barberry thorn
Hung out their summer pride,
Where now on heated pavements worn
The feet of millions stride.


Fair rose the planted hills behind
The good town on the bay,
And where the western hills declined
The prairie stretched away.