| |
| OH mother of a mighty race, | |
| Yet lovely in thy youthful grace! | |
| The elder dames, thy haughty peers, | |
| Admire and hate thy blooming years. | |
| With words of shame | 5 |
| And taunts of scorn they join thy name. | |
| |
| For on thy cheeks the glow is spread | |
| That tints thy morning hills with red; | |
| Thy step—the wild deer’s rustling feet | |
| Within thy woods are not more fleet; | 10 |
| Thy hopeful eye | |
| Is bright as thine own sunny sky. | |
| |
| Ay, let them rail—those haughty ones, | |
| While safe thou dwellest with thy sons. | |
| They do not know how loved thou art, | 15 |
| How many a fond and fearless heart | |
| Would rise to throw | |
| Its life between thee and the foe. | |
| |
| They know not, in their hate and pride, | |
| What virtues with thy children bide; | 20 |
| How true, how good, thy graceful maids | |
| Make bright, like flowers, the valley shades; | |
| What generous men | |
| Spring, like thine oaks, by hill and glen;— | |
| |
| What cordial welcomes greet the guest | 25 |
| By thy lone rivers of the West; | |
| How faith is kept, and truth revered, | |
| And man is loved, and God is feared, | |
| In woodland homes, | |
| And where the ocean border foams. | 30 |
| |
| There ’s freedom at thy gates and rest | |
| For Earth’s down-trodden and opprest, | |
| A shelter for the hunted head, | |
| For the starved laborer toil and bread. | |
| Power, at thy bounds, | 35 |
| Stops and calls back his baffled hounds. | |
| |
| Oh, fair young mother! on thy brow | |
| Shall sit a nobler grace than now. | |
| Deep in the brightness of the skies | |
| The thronging years in glory rise, | 40 |
| And, as they fleet, | |
| Drop strength and riches at thy feet. | |
| |
| Thine eye, with every coming hour, | |
| Shall brighten, and thy form shall tower; | |
| And when thy sisters, elder born, | 45 |
| Would brand thy name with words of scorn, | |
| Before thine eye, | |
| Upon their lips the taunt shall die. | |
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