Are, then, our woods, our mountains, and our streams, Needful to teach our poets how to sing? O maiden rare, far other thoughts were ours, When we have sat by ocean's foaming marge, And watched the waves leap roaring on the rocks, 40 Than young Leander and his Hero had, Gazing from Sestos to the other shore. The moon looks down and ocean worships her, Stars rise and set, and seasons come and go Even as they did in Homer's elder time, But we behold them not with Grecian eyes: Then they were types of beauty and of strength, But now of freedom, unconflned and pure, Subject alone to Order's higher law. What cares the Russian serf or Southern slave 50 Though we should speak as man spake never yet Of gleaming Hudson's broad magnificence, Or green Niagara's never-ending roar? Our country hath a gospel of her own To preach and practise before all the world,-- The freedom and divinity of man, The glorious claims of human brotherhood,-- Which to pay nobly, as a freeman should, Gains the sole wealth that will not fly away,-- And the soul's fealty to none but God. 60 These are realities, which make the shows Of outward Nature, be they ne'er so grand, Seem small, and worthless, and contemptible. These are the mountain-summits for our bards, Which stretch far upward into heaven itself, And give such widespread and exulting view Of hope, and faith, and onward destiny, That shrunk Parnassus to a molehill dwindles. Our new Atlantis, like a morning-star, Silvers the mirk face of slow-yielding Night, 70 The herald of a fuller truth than yet Hath gleamed upon the upraised face of Man Since the earth glittered in her stainless prime,-- Of a more glorious sunrise than of old Drew wondrous melodies from Memnon huge, Yea, draws them still, though now he sit waist-deep In the ingulfing flood of whirling sand, And look across the wastes of endless gray, Sole wreck, where once his hundred-gated Thebes Pained with her mighty hum the calm, blue heaven: 80 Shall the dull stone pay grateful orisons, And we till noonday bar the splendor out, Lest it reproach and chide our sluggard hearts, Warm-nestled in the down of Prejudice, And be content, though clad with angel-wings, Close-clipped, to hop about from perch to perch, In paltry cages of dead men's dead thoughts? Oh, rather, like the skylark, soar and sing, And let our gushing songs befit the dawn And sunrise, and the yet unshaken dew 90 Brimming the chalice of each full-blown hope, Whose blithe front turns to greet the growing day! Never had poets such high call before, Never can poets hope for higher one, And, if they be but faithful to their trust, Earth will remember them with love and joy, And oh, far better, God will not forget. For he who settles Freedom's principles Writes the death-warrant of all tyranny; Who speaks the truth stabs Falsehood to the heart, 100 And his mere word makes despots tremble more Than ever Brutus with his dagger could.