Grand eye of Liberty, light up my page! Like promised morning after night of age Thy dawning youth breaks in the distant east! Thy cloudy robes like silken curtains creased And swung in folds are floating fair and free! The shadows of the cycles turn and flee; The budding stars, bright minds that gemmed the night, Are bursting into broad, bright-petaled light! Sweet Liberty, how pure thy very breath! How dear in life, how doubly dear in death! Ah, slaves that suffer in your self-forged chains, Praying your Christ to touch and heal your pains, Tear off your shackling irons, unbind your eyes, Seize the grand hopes that burn along the skies! Worship not God in temples built of gloom; Far sweeter incense is the flower-bloom Than all the fires that Sacrifice may light; And grander is the star-dome gleaming bright With glowing worlds, than all your altar lamps Pale flickering in your clammy, vaulted damps; And richer is the broad, full, fair sun sheen, Dripping its orient light in streams between The fretted shafting of the forest trees, Throwing its golden kisses to the breeze, Lifting the grasses with its finger-tips, And pressing the young blossoms with warm lips, Show'ring its glory over plain and hill, Wreathing the storm and dancing in the rill; Far richer in wild freedom falling there, Shaking the tresses of its yellow hair, Than all subdued within the dim half-light Of stained glass windows, drooping into night. Oh, grander far the massive mountain walls Which bound the vista of the forest halls, Than all the sculptured forms which guard the piles That arch your tall, dim, gray, cathedral aisles! And gladder is the carol of a bird Than all the anthems that were ever heard To steal in somber chanting from the tone Of master voices praising the Unknown. In the great wild, where foot of man ne'er trod, There find we Nature's church and Nature's God! Here are no fetters! though is free as air; Its flight may spread far as its wings may dare; And through it all one voice cries, "God is love, And love is God!" Around, within, above, Behold the working of the perfect law,-- The law immutable in which no flaw Exists, and from which no appeal is made; Ev'n as the sunlight chases far the shade And shadows chase the light in turn again, So every life is fraught with joy and pain; The stinging thorn lies hid beside the rose; The bud is blighted ere its leave unclose; So pleasure born of Hope may oft-time yield A stinging smart of thorns, a barren field! But let it be: the buds will bloom again, The fields will freshen in the summer rain; And never storm scowls dark but still, somewhere, A bow is bending in the upper air. Then learn the law if thou wouldst live aright;