e tablet, it fades with his breath;
But Nature has written in language so strong
That Eternity's finger alone can displace,
And write its own letters to fill up the space.
Our castles are mountains--our history, long,--
So long that we simply write God on the page,
And leave other Nations to guess at our age.

Our song is the present; God fills up the past,
With his rock-written letters; a volume so vast
No hand may transcribe what He leaves as his own.
From Sinai we came with his prophet of old,
To the valley where glitters the altar of gold--
Shall we break, in our frenzy, the tables of stone?
No! the letters are fresh, and deep graven the hand.
Far too sacred our charge! As He writ, let them stand!

When these tablets of Nature shall yield to the brain,
And some bard shall interpret the words they contain,
What a song shall burst forth from the prison of thought!
As his hand shall pass over the magical strings,
And each chord at his touch into unison springs,
As the wing of his impulse is hastily caught,
No harp more divine in the turn of the earth
Shall throb to the measures of sorrow and mirth!

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes.

Many stanzas do not end with any punctuation. As author's intent could
not be divined, this was retained.

At times, a continued quotation was given a new opening quotation mark
at the start of a new page. As, again, author's intent was not obvious
this was left as printed. Stanzas across pages were difficult to place.

Page vi, "underserved" changed to "undeserved" (to be an undeserved)

Page vi, period added at end of paragraph (all early historians.)

Page vii, "aborgines" changed to "aborigines" (superiors of the
aborigines)

Page vii, "occured" changed to "occurred" (occurred to me)

Page ix, "intolerence" changed to "intolerance" (intolerance and deceit)

Page ix, space added after comma (palliation, and)

Page 10, opening double quotation mark replaced single quotation mark
("Thus saith the Lord: 'O truant)

Page 10, opening double quotation mark replaced single quotation mark
("'I am the God, of whom)

Page 11, word "I" added to text to replace smudged text (I kissed the
clay to life)

Page 18, "deliverence" changed to "deliverance" (where can our
deliverance)

Page 21, "yonr