ance, if thou set the charm
Of thine approval. Let our song be praise
And devotate our hands, that there be left
No tissue, but is animate of Thee!

The seas reach out to clasp each other's hands,
The greater and the less, and leap the sands
That tear in two their waters; but not so
She of the Nile; her rights will not forego.
The hand that rocks the crib of empire holds
A charm, that locks the East and West in one
The track of nations is her beaten path,
And undisputed, till the earth be done.
Man may disturb it, but the hand of God
Has placed a thousand tokens on this sod.

The flocks are gathered, and the flight began,
Old Uri and attendants in the van;
The portents were of good as far as seen,
Each breast a shrine of hope; thus early man
Gave little time to sorrow--after years
Were left for its fruition; light of heart,
These early-planted germlets of the earth,
Took their reverses in the better part
Of hardihood; they had thus early learned,
That in the chafe of fortune there is gain;
That scars are coronets, though they be burned
Deep in the brow of care; each gem a pain.
Our philosophic age with heavy draught,
Drinks deep in phantasies, but fails to learn
The wiser lesson of this early craft,
To catch the wheel of fortune with each turn.

East over Syria they bent their steps,
Meeting Euphrates many leagues above
Where Babylon since molded into form
Her mystical proportions; and so strove
Persistently the mastery of earth.
Crossing the Tigris but a span below,
Where Taurus from his fountains feeds the stream,
They traverse Persia with its after-glow
Of conquest; where Ispahan gave touch,
To chords that deify the voice of song,
And mellow through the ages, if so much
As but an echo would inspire the tongue,
With that enchantment, that rolls down the course
Of her great history. We seek in vain
Another Cyrus, or another force
Of Scripture fulfillment, with lesser pain,
And Time's repleted garner has no riper grain.

Still East they