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IX
Oh, land majestic! Apt for all delight,
- Sweet womanly languors, and high deeds of a man.
- Lie prone no more beneath the palsying ban
Of crusted usage! On thy valleys dight
With tropic verdure, thy cold mountains' height,
- And blissful slopes which temperate breezes fan.
- Breathes the new air that through the ages ran
Whenever God turned men toward the light.
Does our proud race alone enjoy the sun.
- Or does the rain make green no fields but ours?
Prophetic eyes but faintly have begun
- To see the lofty climax of thy powers,
When the full noontide of thy day is won.
- And gathering night on weary Europe lowers.
JOSEPH WHARTON
Philadelphia, May, 1891
