Page:Zinzendorff and Other Poems.pdf/164

Or the broad seas, or the bright tropic-isles
Where Nature in her noon-day faintness holds
A long siesta, still their hearts enshrine
Liberty as a God. There, 'neath the shade
Of the Collisseum vaulting up to Heaven,
The time-spar'd arch, the mighty Basilic,
Palace, and pantheon, and monument,
Where throng a wondering world in pilgrimage,
They bow no knee to Cesar, but compel
The kingly Tiber to pronounce the name
Of their own Washington. Sublime they pour
Warm Memory's incense to their Country's Sire,
He, who in pliant infancy was train'd
By Spartan nurture first to rule himself,
And then a young, embattled host to lead
Through toil and terror, to a glorious seat
Among the nations. Then when every eye
Of every clime was bent on him with awe
Like adoration, from his breast he rent
The adhesive panoply of power, retir'd
From the loud peans of a world, to sleep
Uncrown'd, uncoronetted, 'mid the soil
His hands had till'd. Henceforth let none decry
The majesty of virtue, since she stands
Simply on the high places of the earth,
Her open forehead to the scanning stars,
And the pure-hearted worship her, while Pride
And tyrant power and laurell'd Victory
Do give their sculptur'd trophies to the owl,
And noisome bat, and to the shades pass on
With such memorial as ne'er wrung a tear.