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Hail! Columbia

Enjoyed the peace your valor won;
Let independence be your boast,
Ever mindful what it cost,
Ever grateful for the prize,
Let its altar reach the skies.

Chorus-Firm, united let us be,

Rallying round our liberty,
As a band of brothers joined,
Peace and safety we shall find.

Immortal patriots, rise once more!
Defend your rights, defend your shore;
Let no rude foe, with impious hand,
Invade the shrine where sacred lies
Of toil and blood the well-earned prize;
While offering peace, sincere and just,
In heaven we place a manly trust,
That truth and justice will prevail,
And every scheme of bondage fail.

Sound, sound the trump of fame!
Let Washington's great name

Ring through the world with loud applause!
Let every clime to freedom dear

Listen with a joyful ear;

With equal skill, with steady power,

He governs in the fearful hour
Of horrid war, or guides with ease

The happier time of honest peace.

Behold the chief, who now commands,
Once more to serve his country stands,
The rock on which the storm will beat!
But, armed in virtue, firm and true,
His hopes are fixed on heaven and you.
When hope was sinking in dismay,
When gloom obscured Columbia's day,
His steady mind, from changes free,
Resolved on death or liberty.

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Joseph Hopkinson [1770-1842]

COLUMBIA

COLUMBIA, Columbia, to glory arise,

The queen of the world, and the child of the skies;
Thy genius commands thee; with rapture behold,
While ages on ages thy splendor unfold,

Thy reign is the last and the noblest of time,
Most fruitful thy soil, most inviting thy clime;
Let the crimes of the east ne'er encrimson thy name,
Be freedom, and science, and virtue thy fame.
To conquest and slaughter let Europe aspire;
Whelm nations in blood, and wrap cities in fire;
Thy heroes the rights of mankind shall defend,
And triumph pursue them, and glory attend.
A world is thy realm: for a world be thy laws,
Enlarged as thine empire, and just as thy cause;
On Freedom's broad basis, that empire shall rise,
Extend with the main, and dissolve with the skies.
Fair science her gates to thy sons shall unbar,
And the east see the morn hide the beams of her star.
New bards, and new sages, unrivalled shall soar
To fame unextinguished, when time is no more;
To thee, the last refuge of virtue designed,
Shall fly from all nations the best of mankind;
Here, grateful to heaven, with transport shall bring
Their incense, more fragrant than odors of spring.
Nor less shall thy fair ones to glory ascend,
And genius and beauty in harmony blend;
The graces of form shall awake pure desire,
And the charms of the soul ever cherish the fire;
Their sweetness unmingled, their manners refined,
And virtue's bright image, instamped on the mind,
With peace and soft rapture shall teach life to glow,
And light up a smile in the aspect of woe.

Thy fleets to all regions thy power shall display,
The nations admire and the ocean obey;

Each shore to thy glory its tribute unfold,

And the east and the south yield their spices and gold.

"Oh Mother of a Mighty Race

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As the day-spring unbounded, thy splendor shall flow,
And earth's little kingdoms before thee shall bow;
While the ensigns of union, in triumph unfurled,
Hush the tumult of war and give peace to the world.

Thus, as down a lone valley, with cedars o'erspread,
From war's dread confusion I pensively strayed,
The gloom from the face of fair heaven retired;
The winds ceased to murmur; the thunders expired;
Perfumes as of Eden flowed sweetly along,

And a voice as of angels, enchantingly sung:
"Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise,

The queen of the world, and the child of the skies."

Timothy Dwight [1752-1817]

"OH MOTHER OF A MIGHTY RACE"

Oн mother of a mighty race,

Yet lovely in thy youthful grace!

The elder dames, thy haughty peers,
Admire and hate thy blooming years.
With words of shame

And taunts of scorn they join thy name.

For on thy cheeks the glow is spread
That tints thy morning hills with red;
Thy step-the wild deer's rustling feet
Within thy woods are not more fleet;
Thy hopeful eye

Is bright as thine own sunny sky.

Ay, let them rail-those haughty ones,
While safe thou dwellest with thy sons.
They do not know how loved thou art,
How many a fond and fearless heart
Would rise to throw

Its life between thee and the foe.

They know not, in their hate and pride,
What virtues with thy children bide;
How true, how good, thy graceful maids
Make bright, like flowers, the valley-shades;

What generous men

Spring, like thine oaks, by hill and glen;

What cordial welcomes greet the guest
By thy lone rivers of the West;
How faith is kept, and truth revered,
And man is loved, and God is feared,
In woodland homes,

And where the ocean border foams.

There's freedom at thy gates and rest
For Earth's down-trodden and oppressed,
A shelter for the hunted head,

For the starved laborer toil and bread.

Power, at thy bounds,

Stops and calls back his baffled hounds.

Oh, fair young mother! on thy brow
Shall sit a nobler grace than now.
Deep in the brightness of the skies
The thronging years in glory rise,
And, as they fleet,

Drop strength and riches at thy feet.

William Cullen Bryant [1794-1878]

HYMN OF THE WEST

WORLD'S FAIR, ST. LOUIS, MO., 1904

O THOU, whose glorious orbs on high
Engird the earth with splendor round,
From out Thy secret place draw nigh
The courts and temples of this ground;
Eternal Light,

Fill with Thy might

These domes that in Thy purpose grew,
And lift a nation's heart anew!

Illumine Thou each pathway here,

To show the marvels God hath wrought!

Since first Thy people's chief and seer

Looked up with that prophetic thought,

Concord Hymn

Bade Time unroll

The fateful scroll,

And empire unto Freedom gave

From cloudland height to tropic wave.

Poured through the gateways of the North
Thy mighty rivers join their tide,

And, on the wings of morn sent forth,
Their mists the far-off peaks divide.
By Thee unsealed,

The mountains yield

Ores that the wealth of Ophir shame,
And gems enwrought of seven-hued flame.

Lo, through what years the soil hath lain,
At Thine own time to give increase—
The greater and the lesser grain,

The ripening boll, the myriad fleece!
Thy creatures graze
Appointed ways;

League after league across the land
The ceaseless herds obey Thy hand.

Thou, whose high archways shine most clear
Above the plenteous Western plain,
Thine ancient tribes from round the sphere
To breathe its quickening air are fain:
And smiles the sun

To see made one

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Their brood throughout Earth's greenest space,
Land of the new and lordlier race!

Edmund Clarence Stedman [1833-1908]

CONCORD HYMN

SUNG AT THE COMPLETION OF THE BATTLE MONUMENT,
APRIL 19, 1836

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.

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