etween the ages of monarchs and the age
When farmers in their fields are kings.
From the Revolution the young Republic emerged,
She mounted up as on the wings of the eagle,
She ran and was not weary, and all the children of the world
Joined her and followed her shining path.
But ever as she ran, above her lifted head
Darkened the monster cloud of slavery.
Hark! In the walls, amid voices of prayer and of triumph,
I hear the clank of manacles and the ominous mutterings of bondsmen!
At Gettysburg, our Golgotha, the sons of the fathers
Poured their blood to wash out a nation's shame.
Cleansed by tribulation and atonement,
The broken nation rose from her knees,
And with hope reborn in her heart set forth again
Upon the open road to ideal democracy.

Sing, walls, in lightning words that shall cause the world to
vibrate,
Of the democracy to come,
Of the swift, teeming, confident thing!
We are part of it--the wonder and the terror and the glory!
Fearless we rush forward to meet the years,
The years that come flying towards us
With wings outspread, agleam on the horizon of time!

O eloquent, sane walls, instinct with a new faith,
Ye are barbarous, in congruous, but great with the greatness of
reality.
Walls wrought in unfaltering effort,
Sing of our prosperity, the joyous harvest
Of the labor of lusty toilers.
Down through the years comes the ring of their victorious axes:
"Ye are titans of the forest, but we are stronger;
Ye are strong with the strength of mighty winds,
But we are strong with the unconquerable strength of souls!"
Still the young race, unassailable, inviolate,
Shakes the solitudes with the strokes of creation;
Doubly strong we renew the valorous days,
And like a measureless sea we overflow
The fresh green, benevolent West,
The buoyant, fruitful West that dares and sings!
Pure, dew-dripping walls that guard
The quiet, lovable, fertile fields,
Sing praises to Him who from the mossy rocks
Can bid the fountains leap in thirsty lands.
I walk beside the stones through the young grain,
Through waves of wheat that billow about my knees.
The walls contest the onward march of the wheat;
But the wheat is charged with the life of the world;
Its force is irresistible; onward it sweeps,
An engulfing tide, over all the land,
Till hill and valley, field and plain
Are flooded with its green felicity!
Out of the moist earth it has sprung;
In the gracious amplitudes of her bosom it was nurtured,
And in it is