THE MINES.
Bring the Nation's wealth to the Nation's need!
Let the golden veins of the mountains bleed!
Bid the pallid pulses of silver start
From the sordid depths of the earth's black heart.
There are burning rubies that gem the sod;
There are trampled pearls where the battle trod;
There are brilliants throbbing with glorious life,
Scattered like chaff on the field of strife;
Yet the passive hand of the Nation sleeps
Cold on the key of the treasure heaps!
And Columbia's need is in whispers told
Where her rivers dash on a shore of gold;
Where her regal hills in their pride look down
On the golden fringe of their mantle brown;
Where the sunbeams glitter on sand as bright,
And the sod is spangled with silver light.
Is the warm, true life of the Nation's veins
Less than the dust of the yellow plains,
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