What came ye forth to see? Why from the sunward regions of the palm, And piney headlands by the northern main, From Holland's watery ways, and parching Spain, From pleasant France and storied Italy, From India's patience, and from Egypt's calm, To this far city of a soil new-famed Come ye in festal guise to-day, Charged with no fatal "gifts of Greece," Nor Punic treaties double-tongued, But proffering hands of amity, And speaking messages of peace, With drum-beats ushered, and with shouts acclaimed, While cannon-echoes lusty-lung'd Reverberate far away? * * * * * IV. Our errand here to-day Hath warrant fair, ye say; We come with you to consecrate A hero's, ay a prophet's monument; Yet needs he none, who was so great; Vainly they build in Cuba's isle afar His sepulcher beside the sapphire sea; He hath for cenotaph a continent, For funeral wreaths, the forests waving free, And round his grave go ceaselessly The morning and the evening star. Yet is it fit that ye should praise him best, For ye his true descendants are, A spirit-begotten progeny; Wherefore to thee, fair city of the West, From elder lands we gladly came To grace a prophet's fame. V. Beauteous upon the waters were the wings That bore glad tidings o'er the leaping wave Of sweet Hesperian isles, more bland and fair Than lover's looks or bard's imaginings; And blest was he, the hero brave, Who first the tyrannous deeps defied, And o'er the wilderness of waters wide A sun-pursuing highway did prepare For those true-hearted exiles few The house of Liberty that reared anew. Nor fails he here of honor due. These goodly structures ye behold, These towering piles in order brave, From whose tall crests the pennons wave Like tropic plumage, gules and gold; These ample halls, wherein ye view Whate'er is fairest wrought and best-- South with North vying, East with West, And arts of yore with science new-- Bear witness for us how religiously We cherish here his memory. VI.