strike the atoning chords!
Hark--there comes a cry!

IX

Over all this earth, sweet,
The poor and weak look up to you--
Lift their burdened shoulders, stretch their fettered hands in prayer:
You, with gentle hands, can bring the world-wide dream to birth, sweet,
While I lift this cup to you
And wonder--will she care?

X

Kindle, eyes, and beat, heart!
Hold the brimming breaker up!
All the may is burgeoning from East to golden West!
England, my mother, greet America, my sweetheart:
--Ah, but ere I drained the cup
I found her on your breast.

EXORDIUM

When on the highest ridge of that strange land,
Under the cloudless blinding tropic blue,
Drake and his band of swarthy seamen stood
With dazed eyes gazing round them, emerald fans
Of palm that fell like fountains over cliffs
Of gorgeous red anana bloom obscured
Their sight on every side. Illustrious gleams
Of rose and green and gold streamed from the plumes
That flashed like living rainbows through the glades.
Piratic glints of musketoon and sword,
The scarlet scarves around the tawny throats,
The bright gold ear-rings in the sun-black ears,
And the calm faces of the negro guides
Opposed their barbarous bravery to the noon;
Yet a deep silence dreadfully besieged
Even those mighty hearts upon the verge
Of the undiscovered world. Behind them lay
The old earth they knew. In front they could not see
What lay beyond the ridge. Only they heard
Cries of the painted birds troubling the heat
And shivering through the woods; till Francis Drake
Plunged through the hush, took hold upon a tree,
The tallest near them, and clomb upward, branch
By branch.
And there, as he swung clear above
The steep-down forest, on his wondering eyes,
Mile upon mile of rugged shimmering gold,
Burst the unknown immeasurable sea.
Then he descended; and with a new voice
Vowed that, God helping, he would one day plough
Those virgin waters with an English keel.

So here before the unattempted task,
Above the Golden Ocean of my dream
I clomb and saw in splendid pageant pass
The wild adventures and heroic deeds
Of England's epic age, a vision lit
With mighty prophecies, fraught with a doom
Worthy the great Homeric