voice of her own first-born.

From the ruddy morning on Egypt's sands,
When her eagles rose in their terrible flight
To stretch their shadow across the lands
Till it perished in Russia's frozen night,
When th' insatiable conqueror's reckoning came
And his Empire melted away in flame:

When there at Moscow the Lord God spoke
And said, "Thine end is at hand: prepare,"
As at Kadesh once, from amid the smoke,
To the prophet who led His People there;
"I set thee up, I will cast thee down,
For that thou claimedst thyself the crown.

"Thine eyes have seen; but thou shalt not stand
On the promised shore of a world set free;
The People shall pass alone to the Land
Of Promise and Light and Liberty:
Of Peace enthroned in a Nation's trust,
When thou and thy throne alike are dust."

THE PRINCESS' PROGRESS

Across the dusky land
The Gracious Goddess, Spring,
In vernal robes arrayed,
Last night her royal progress made,
Scattering with lavish hand
Her fragrant blossoming.
Along the wold,
In spendthrift glee,
She strewed her gold
And gilded all the lea.
The dandelions' yellow coin
Lie scattered in the tangled grass,
And buttercup and crocus join
To tell the way she chose to pass.
In lavish wealth the gleaming daffodil
Shines on the cloudy April hill,
And many a yellow marigold
Marks where her brazen chariot rolled;
The slender-necked narcissus bends
His dewy head, and leaning down,
Looks deep to find within a dew-drop's lens
A mirrowing pool where Love may drown.
No cranny deep nor nook
But felt her tender look;
No secret leafy place
But warmed before her face
And blossomed with her grace.
The woodland, sombre yesterday,
Hath in her presence donned a brave array,
And in a night grown gay.
Her purple cloak, all careless flung,
Upon the red-bud hung;
And on the forest trees,
Her richest laceries.
While sprinkled deep with dust of gold
The tender, flowery branches hold
Her verdant robe blown fold on fold.
Her queenly figure clad
In broidered raiment glad,
Complete and passing sweet,
Hath set the sylvan zephyrs mad.
About her breathed rare odors sweet,
Of roses blowing neath her feet:
About her breathed sweet odors rare,
Of violets shaken from her hair,
As though unseen of mortal eyes,
She 'd jarred the gates of Paradise.
Her crystal horn in passing by she wound,
And at the witching sound,
As by the enchanter's stroke,
The fields in music broke,
And every silent grove in melody awoke.
Responsive to her charmèd lyre
The dewy-throated choir
Carol in every brake and brier,
And flood with golden song
The verdant reaches ranged along—
Where drinking deep from fountains clear
Their inspiration,
They hymn their jubilation
That Spring again is here;
And all together sing
The Goddess of the Year,
The Spring: the gracious Spring.

YOUTH

I once might hear the fairies sing
Upon the feathery grass a-swing,
Or in the orchard's blossoming:
Their melody so fine and clear,
One had to bend his ear to hear,
Or else the music well might pass
For zephyrs whispering in the grass.

I once might see the fairies dance
A-circle in their meadow-haunts,
Soft-tapered by the new-moon's glance:
Their airy feet in crystal shoon
Made twinklings neath the silver moon.
Such witchery, but that 't was seen,
Might well have been the dew-drops' sheen.

I've wandered far yond summer seas,
Where Music dwells mid harmonies
That well the Seraphim might please;
But never more I catch, ah me!
The fairies' silvery melody—
Their crystal twinkling on the moonlit lea.

AMERICA: GREETING

I have journeyed the spacious world over,
And here to thy sapphire wide gate,
America, I, thy True Lover
Return now, exalted, elate,
As an heir who returns to recover
His forefathers' lofty estate.

I 've seen visions of castle and palace
Up-soaring to sun-flooded skies,
Where men have drunk deep of Death's chalice,
In infinite soul-agonies—
Where Tyranny glutted her malice
And battened on Liberty's cries.

Where splendor of palace and tower
Cried up unto God with men's blood;
Where th' emblems of Tyranny's Power
Imperial and brazen have stood,
With faggot and sword to devour,
And the rack scowling hard by God's Rood.

And now at thy fair, open portal,
I stand as I stood in my Youth,
Amazed at the vision immortal
Of naked and unashamed Truth:
The Truth that the Fathers have taught all
Their children: their birth-right in sooth.

I greet thee: thy purple, large reaches,—
From the snow-mantled, spire-pointed pine,
To thy golden, long, low-lying beaches,
Awash with thy tropical brine,
And thine infinite bosom that teaches
How God hath made Freedom divine.

God dowered thee fair mid the Oceans:
He bulwarked thee strong with the seas,
That Man might preserve here the motions
He gave Freedom's bold processes:
That Man in his loftiest devotions
Might serve Freedom's altars in Peace.

How crude then and rude then soever
Thy struggles to lift from the sod,
Thy Freedom is strong to dissever
The Shackles, the Yoke, and the Rod;
Thy Freedom is Mighty forever,
For men who kneel only to God.

DAWN

Who hath not heard in dusky summer dawns,
Ere winds Aurora's horn, the dreamy spell
Just rippled by some drowsy sentinel.
Who from his leafy outpost on the lawns
Chimes sleepily his call that all is well?
A moment—pipes another silvery note:
Aurora's crystal wheels flash up the sky;
The sentries cry the Dawn and joyously
Glad Welcome peals from every dewy throat,
And every leafy bough chimes melody.

So, in the gloom and silence of the night,
My heart in slumber steeped, unheeding lay,
Not recking how the hours might fleet away;
When on my Heavens dawned a radiant light,
And straight I wakened to a shining day.

THE POET ON AGRADINA

The spacious cities hummed with toil:
The monarch reared his towers to the skies;
Men delved the fruitful soil
And studied to be wise;
Along the highway's rocky coil
The mailed legions rang;
Smiling unheeded 'mid the moil,
The Poet sang.

The glittering cities long are heaps:
The starry towers lie level with the plain;
The desert serpent sleeps
Where soared the marble fane;
The stealthy, bead-eyed lizard creeps
Where gleamed the tyrant's throne;
The grandeur dark oblivion steeps:
The song sings on.

THE SHEPHERD OF THE SEAS

From Raleigh's Devon hills the misty sea
Climbs ever westward till it meets the sky,
And silently the white-fleeced ships go by,
And mount and mount up the long azure lea,
Peaceful as sheep at night that placidly
Climb the tall downs