Silence to such forever, and behold!

It is a vast cathedral, and its nave

And dim-lit transept and broad aisles are filled
With a great nation's millions, on their knees
With new devotion and high fervor thrilled
Offering silver and heart's-ease

And love and life and all sweet, temporal things,
Still to keep bright

The steady light

That stifles in the wake of kings!

A market-place! they cried?
A lotus-land? They lied!

It is a great cathedral, not with hands
Upraised, but by the spirit's mute commands
Uplifted by the spirit, wall and spire,
To house a nation's purified desire!

A church! Where in hushed fervor stand
The children of contending races,

Forgetting feud and fatherland

A hundred million lifted faces.

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III

Once more the bugle breaks the April mood.
Once more the march of armies wakes the glen.
Once more the ardor simmers in the blood.
Once more a dream is single lord of men!

From images, from gods of clay,
From idols bright with diadems;
From lips that drew our souls astray
With lure of palaces and gems

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And dancing girls and lights and wine

And crowns and power and golden halls;
From pride's penurious Mine and Thine,
Like narrow streets with towering walls;
From painted counterfeits and trash
We turn to the authentic gleam,
Where in the gale and battle thrash
The banners of a holy dream!

Once more a dream is single lord of men!
Yea, we have put aside all little gods!
A dream is captain of the hours again!
And we who were the sod's

Budding and fading children, with no trust
Or treasury beyond the dust,

Feel on our eyes ethereal finger-tips
Burn like a living coal!

And gasp to feel the angel at our lips
Call and awake the soul!

Once more a dream is single lord of men!
Yea, we will rise and go, and face disaster
And want and wounds and death in some far fen,
Having no king, but a great dream for master!
To lead us over perilous seas, through trials

Of heart and spirit, through long nights of pain,
Through agonies of fear, and self-denials,

And longing for far friends and comrades slain.
And doubt and hate and utter weariness
And savage hungers and supreme despairs
Yea, we will go, yea, we will acquiesce,
So at the last our children be the heirs
Of life, not death; of liberty, not bars!
Inheritors not of smooth, ordered things,

But of hot struggle and strong hearts, and stars!
And questing spirits and fierce gales and wings!

Once more a dream is single lord of men!

Yea, we will go and we will close dear doors
Of hope, and many an airy denizen

Of the dear land of Maybe and the shores
Of the enchanted islands of Perchance,
We will face, hand in hand and eye
Too full of pain for any utterance

in

eye,

Save the last halting murmur, "So-good-by."
For we will part from other friends than those
Who wear this garment of dissolving flesh.
And die for dreams. Yea, softly we will close
The gates of twilit gardens cool and fresh,
Where, with the great immortals amid flowers

And bright immortal birds and billowy trees,
We held high converse and forgot the hours,
Remembering Truth and Beauty. Even to these
Beloved ghosts we also speak farewell.

IV

We will arise and go, not ignorant
Wherefore or at what price we go to sell
This bundle of bright hopes we covenant
Unto a dream. Our price is a new world!
We will go forth and slay the dragon, yea,
With all the banners of the Dream unfurled
We will go forth with swords and songs to slay
This ravager of villages, this old,

Bewitched, confused, malignant coil of hate,
Belching green poisons! In his dungeon-hold

The captive queens in tears and hunger wait. Immortal Dream! The fettered shall be free!

Yea, not these only! All, who fettered lie!

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Oh, Dream, who wilt not let us bow the knee,
Let not this dragon's downfall satisfy
Our reawakened passion for free hands,
Free-ranging and unsaddled spirits, born
To race against the wind on wide sea-strands
And thunder up high glens! Oh, silver horn,
Calling us forth, help us remember, yea,

Even now help us remember, while the Snake
Sprawls yet unconquered on the world's highway
And hills and cities to his roaring shake,

Help us remember that the high crusade

Whereon we here embark calls forth the free In hosts with spears and flaunting flags arrayed, Nor for one dragon's end, one victory,

One last great war, but to unending war

Without, within, till God's white torch, supreme, Melt the last chain; and the last dungeon-door Swing slowly wide to the triumphant dream!

God, who gavest men eyes
To see a dream;

God, who gavest men heart
To follow the Gleam;
God, who gavest men stars
To find heaven by;
God, who madest men glad
At need to die;

Lord, from the hills again
We hear thy drum!
God, who lovest free men,
God, who lovest free men,
God, who lovest free men,
Lead on! We come.

LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD' (1917) BY HENRY VAN DYKE°

THOU warden of the western gate, above Manhattan Bay, The fogs of doubt that hid thy face are driven clean away: Thine eyes at last look far and clear, thou liftest high thy hand

To spread the light of liberty world-wide for every land. No more thou dreamest of a peace reserved alone for thee, 5 While friends are fighting for thy cause beyond the guard

ian sea:

The battle that they wage is thine; thou fallest if they fall;

The swollen flood of Prussian pride will sweep unchecked o'er all.

O cruel is the conquer-lust in Hohenzollern brains :

The paths they plot to gain their goal are dark with shame

ful stains:

No faith they keep, no law revere, no god but naked Might;

They are the foemen of mankind. Up, Liberty, and smite!

Britain, and France and Italy, and Russia newly born, Have waited for thee in the night. Oh, come as comes the morn!

Serene and strong and full of faith, America, arise,
With steady hope and mighty help to join thy brave
Allies.

O dearest country of my heart, home of the high desire,
Make clean thy soul for sacrifice on Freedom's altar-fire:
For thou must suffer, thou must fight, until the war-lords
cease,

And all the peoples lift their heads in liberty and peace.

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