Beauty had lived in India like a mad And withdrawn prophetess, in Greece had set her pace Between a laurelled lad And a singing maiden, pitched her purple tents In Rome, leaned with a mother's fears In Bethlehem to nurse a son of God upon her breast And learned the tender loneliness of tears, Awhile had hid in Europe, sad In the shadow of magnificence, Brooding, finding no rest, And then of a sudden she had run forth from her hiding-place, Rejoicing, desperate, intense Against her enemy, a rod Of fire in her hand, her tresses crowned With liberty, her purpose bold and bound That every son should be a son of God. And then she wept for France.... But once more clad In stars, she beckons to America, the land Of hope. Behold her stand With her bright finger scorning armaments And on her lips the unconquerable common sense Of love calling the world to challenge and confound The empty idols of her enemy! ... Comforter of experience, Enlightener of old events, Beauty forever dares to widen and retrace Her way, singing the marches of democracy, Carrying banners of the time to be, Calling companions to her high command. There is a banner, Celia, in your hand! Though sons, whose fathers bled For freedom, struggle now instead With heavier weapons and with weary-waking head For bread; Though sons, whose fathers fought in other ages For fame, bear in their hearts today the scar Of entering where the laborer sleeps And rousing him with masterly inquiry where he keeps His wages: Though all the cunning coil of trade appear a baser thing Than battles are, O trace through time the orbit of this troubled star! ... See, from afar off, how the valiant few Of old, each with a helmet on his head, Practiced their inconclusive feud Upon no battlefield of unfeeling dew-- But on the prostrate stillness of the multitude! Even their knightliest prowess they must rear, Tamerlane, Alexander, Arthur, every king, Upon the common clay from which they spring. For see how slaves, on whom war falls, renew The strength of war and disappear Year after year Into the earth--fulfilling it to form and bear Democracy! Look nearer now along the modern sky And watch where every man fastens the electric wing Upon his foot, that he may leave his little sod Of ignorance! And look where, by and by, Taking his high inheritance, He knows himself and other men as the winged self of God!