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With names of noisier note and honours blends.
Who knows who’s honoured thee? Who’s made thee strong?
Who’s lifted up thy head and made thee great?
What prayer or speech or unremembered song
Has helped the current of thy life’s new date.
Here influences have wrought, untold, unknown,
The holy breath of thought, that never grew
Into a verbal framing; the dear love
Which but the heart that held it ever knew;
The hope which brings true rest, the peace that’s wove
Into domestic manners pure and free,
Blessing the inner spirit; far above,
In its unnoted strength, the ecstasy
Of joys of grander import, its soft tone
Working in ways of good continually,
Soothing the sighs of grief, and pain’s shrill groan,
And healing the vexed heart of poverty.
These, and a thousand more of gentler force,
Sweet influences in thine own heart upgrown,
Powers all ignored by fame, their silent course
Keeping unseen around life’s common day,
Into thy deeper soul a charm have thrown,
Keeping it even in the grander way
Of Public Progress and of Modern Life.
So hast thou grown illumined by the ray–
Deep in thy bosom still, through all thy strife–
The ray of heavenly wisdom, whose soft sway
Has changed thy destinies, thy spirit rife
With old barbaric hate, and wrought in thee
The life and purpose of a city free.
Henceforth thy path is onward. Victory