A flawless cup: how delicate and fine

The night must put her hiding handO’er peaceful towns where children sleep,And peaceful ships that darkly creepAcross the waves, as if they were not free.The dragons of the air,The hell-hounds of the deep,Lurking and prowling everywhere,Go forth to seek their helpless prey,Not knowing whom they maim or slay–Mad harvesters, who care not what they reap.Out…

Thy rolling plains;Thy rivers’ mighty sweep,Thy mystic canyons deep,Thy mountains wild and steep,All thy domains;Thy silver Eastern strands,Thy Golden Gate that standsWide to the West;Thy flowery Southland fair,Thy sweet and crystal air, —O land beyond compare,Thee I love best!Additional verses for theNational Hymn,March, 1906.

Now on the elm the misty buds are swelling,See how the pine-wood grows alive with wings;Blue-jays fluttering, yodeling and crying,Meadow-larks sailing low above the faded grass,Red-birds whistling clear, silent robins flying,–Who has waked the birds up? What has come to pass?Last year’s cotton-plants, desolately bowing,Tremble in the March-wind, ragged and forlorn;Red are the hill-sides of…

The worlds in which we live at heart are one,The world ‘I am,’ the fruit of ‘I have done’;And underneath these worlds of flower and fruit,The world ‘I love,’–the only living root.

As thee, my country, had I felt the spellOf Italy at birth, or learned to obeyThe charm of France, or England’s mighty sway.I would not be so much an infidelAs once to dream, or fashion words to tell,What land could hold my love from thee away.For like a law of nature in my bloodI feel…

The starry heavens and the moral law.’Nay, add another wonder to thy roll, —The living marvel of the human soul!Born in the dust and cradled in the dark,It feels the fire of an immortal spark,And learns to read, with patient, searching eyes,The splendid secret of the unconscious skies.For God thought Light before He spoke the…