OUR fathers' God! from out whose hand
The centuries
fall like grains of sand,
We meet to-day, united, free,
And loyal to our land and Thee,
To thank Thee for the era
done,
And trust Thee for the opening one.
Here,
where of old, by Thy design,
The fathers spake that word
of Thine
Whose echo is the glad refrain
Of rended bolt
and falling chain,
To grace our festal time, from all
The zones of earth our guests we call.
Be with us
while the New World greets
The Old World thronging all
its streets,
Unveiling all the triumphs won
By art or
toil beneath the sun;
And unto common good ordain
This
rivalship of hand and brain.
Thou, who hast here in
concord furled
The war flags of a gathered world,
Beneath our Western skies fulfil
The Orient's mission of
good-will,
And, freighted with love's Golden Fleece,
Send back its Argonauts of peace.
For art and labor
met in truce,
For beauty made the bride of use,
We
thank Thee; but, withal, we crave
The austere virtues
strong to save,
The honor proof to place or gold,
The
manhood never bought nor sold!
Oh make Thou us,
through centuries long,
In peace secure, in justice
strong;
Around our gift of freedom draw
The safeguards
of thy righteous law:
And, cast in some diviner mould,
Let the new cycle shame the old!
1876. |
