The morn, that breaks its heart of gold Above the purple hills; The eve, that spills Its nautilus splendor where the sea is rolled; The night, that leads the vast procession in Of stars and dreams,-- The beauty that shall never die or pass:-- The winds, that spin Of rain the misty mantles of the grass, And thunder-raiment of the mountain-streams; The sunbeams, needling with gold the dusk Green cowls of ancient woods; The shadows, thridding, veiled with musk, The moon-pathed solitudes, Call to my Fancy, saying, "Follow! follow!" Till, following, I see,-- Fair as a cascade in a rainbowed hollow,-- A dream, a shape, take form, Clad on with every charm,-- The vision of that Ideality, Which lured the pioneer in wood and hill, And beckoned him from earth and sky; The dream that cannot die, Their children's children did fulfill. In stone and iron and wood, Out of the solitude, And by a forthright act Create a mighty fact-- A Nation, now that stands Clad on with hope and beauty, strength and song, Eternal, young, and strong, Planting her heel on Wrong, Her starry banner in triumphant hands.... Within her face the rose Of Alleghany dawns; Limbed with Alaskan snows, Floridian starlight in her eyes,-- Eyes stern as steel yet tender as a fawn's,-- And in her hair The rapture of her rivers; and the dare, As perishless as truth, That o'er the crags of her Sierras flies, Urging the eagle ardor through her veins, Behold her where, Around her radiant youth, The spirits of the cataracts and plains, The genii of the floods and forests, meet, In rainbow mists circling her brow and feet: The forces vast that sit In session round her; powers paraclete, That guard her presence; awful forms and fair. Making secure her place; Guiding her surely as the worlds through space Do laws sidereal; edicts, thunder-lit, Of skyed eternity, in splendor borne On planetary wings of night and morn. VIII.