Oh! Land of the Beautiful! Land of the Bright! Where the echoless feet of the Hours Are gliding forever in soft, dreamy light Through their mazes of sunshine and flow’rs; Fair clime of the Laurel—the Sword and the Lyre! There the souls are all genius—the hearts are all fire; There the Rivers—the Mountains—the lowliest sods Were hallowed, long since, by the bright feet of Gods; There Beauty and Grandeur their wonders of old Like a bridal of star-light and thunder unroll’d; There the air seems to breathe of a music sent out From the rose-muffled lips of invisible streams, Oh! sweet as the harmony whispered about The Night’s moon-beaming portal of exquisite Dreams. ’Though Beauty and Grandeur, magnificent clime! Have walked o’er thy Vallies and Mountains sublime, With a port as majestic—unfading as Time— A death-pall is on Thee! The funeral glare Of a grave-torch, Oh! Italy, gleams on the air! Lo! the crimes of whole ages roll down on thy breast! Hark! Hark to the fierce thunder-troops of the Storm! Ah! soon shall they stamp on thy beautiful crest, And riot unchecked o’er thy loveliest form! Oh! Land of the Beautiful! Land of the Bright! ’Though the day of thy glory is o’er, And the time-hallowed mountains are mantled in night Where thy Liberty flourished before; ’Though the black brow of Bigotry scowls on thy race Which are kissing the chains of their brutal disgrace; ’Though the torches of Freedom so long hurled about By thy heroes of old are forever gone out; Yet! yet shall thy Beauty shine out from the gloom, Oh! Land of the Harp and the Wreath and the Tomb! The seal has been set! Immortality beams Like a time-daring star o’er thy temples and streams; And still as whole tribes from the weird future dart, They shall kneel at thine altar, Oh! clime of the Heart! More splendid art thou, with thy banners all furl’d And thy brow in the dust, than the rest of the world, For the MIGHTY—the Dead who have hallowed our earth, In thee have their rest and from thee took their birth. Oh! alas that we live—_we_ the boastful who leap Like mere rills where the sun-pillar’d Truth is enshrined Where those broad-rolling rivers no longer may sweep With their billows of light to the Ocean of Mind.