Part 35 (2/2)

[B] Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty in New York harbour.

IV.

_O sunlike Liberty, with eyes of flame,_ _Mother and maid, immortal, stern of vow!_ _Fairest and first art thou in name and fame,_ _And thou shall wear the lightning on thy brow!_

V.

Who dares condemn thee with the puny breath Of one poor life, O thou untouched of Fate!

Who seeks to lure thee to a felon's death, And thou so splendid and so love-elate?

Who dares do this and live? Who dares a.s.sail Thy star-kissed forehead, pure and marble-pale; And thou so self-possessed 'mid all the stir, And like to Pallas born of Mulciber?

VI.

Oh, I've beheld the sun, at setting time, Peep o'er the hills as if to say good-bye; And I have hailed it with the sudden rhyme Of some new thought, full-freighted with a sigh.

And I have mused:--E'en thus may Freedom fall, And darkness shroud it like a wintry pall, And night o'erwhelm it, and the shades thereof Engulf the glories born of perfect love.

VII.

But there's no fall for thee; there is no tomb; And none shall stab thee, none shall stay thy hand.

Thy face is fair with love's eternal bloom, And thou shalt have all things at thy command.

A tomb for thee? Ay, when the sun is slain And lamps and fires make daylight on the plain, Then may'st thou die, O Freedom! and for thee A tomb be found where fears and dangers be.

VIII.

_O sunlike Liberty, with eyes of flame,_ _Mother and maid, immortal, keen of sight!_ _Fairest and first art thou in name and fame,_ _And thou shall tread the tempest in the night!_

IX.

There shall be feasting and a sound of song In thy great cities; and a voice divine Shall tell of freedom all the winter long, And fill the air with rapture as with wine.

The spring shall hear it, spring shall hear the sound, And summer waft it o'er the flowerful ground; And autumn pale shall shake her withered leaves On festal morns and star-bespangled eves.

X.

For thou'rt the smile of Heaven when earth is dim-- The face of G.o.d reflected in the sea-- The land's acclaim uplifted by the hymn Of some glad lark triumphant on the lea.

Thou art all this and more! Thou art the goal Of earth's elected ones from pole to pole, The lute-string's voice, the world's primeval fire, And each man's hope, and every man's desire.

XI.

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