Page:Poems Blake.djvu/205

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ODE.
197
IV.

O Great and Good! Benign of heart and face!
Whose hand hath paused amid its many cares,
Sending a white-winged messenger of grace
To answer with its blessing our weak prayers!
Here, from the shores that first Columbus trod
To win a world for mankind and for God,
List to the burst of loud and long acclaim,
Teaching our skies the homage due thy name!
Behold the lifted hand, the lighted brow,
As Priest and Prelate with their people bow,
While the long billows of the Western main
Roll with our greeting back and hail thee once again!

V.

    And thou, O Mother of our race!
Above whose brow another star arisen
Crowns thee Immaculate through Earth and Heaven,—
    Hail, Mary, full of Grace!
Youngest amid the nations, still we claim
To hold most dear thine honor and thy name;
Oh! be at once our solace and our rest,
Of all our guides the truest and the best;