As billows upon billows roll,
  On victory victory breaks;
Ere yet seven days from Richmond’s fall
  And crowning triumph wakes
The loud joy-gun, whose thunders run
  By sea-shore, streams, and lakes. 
    The hope and great event agree
    In the sword that Grant received from Lee.

The warring eagles fold the wing,
  But not in Caesar’s sway;
Not Rome o’ercome by Roman arms we sing,
  As on Pharsalia’s day,
But Treason thrown, though a giant grown,
  And Freedom’s larger play. 
    All human tribes glad token see
    In the close of the wars of Grant and Lee.

A Canticle: 
Significant of the national exaltation of enthusiasm at
the close of the War.

O the precipice Titanic
  Of the congregated Fall,
And the angle oceanic
  Where the deepening thunders call—­
    And the Gorge so grim,
    And the firmamental rim! 
Multitudinously thronging
  The waters all converge,
Then they sweep adown in sloping
  Solidity of surge.

    The Nation, in her impulse
      Mysterious as the Tide,
    In emotion like an ocean
      Moves in power, not in pride;
    And is deep in her devotion
      As Humanity is wide.

        Thou Lord of hosts victorious,
          The confluence Thou hast twined;
        By a wondrous way and glorious
          A passage Thou dost find—­
          A passage Thou dost find: 
        Hosanna to the Lord of hosts,
          The hosts of human kind.

Stable in its baselessness
  When calm is in the air,
The Iris half in tracelessness
  Hovers faintly fair. 
Fitfully assailing it
  A wind from heaven blows,
Shivering and paling it
  To blankness of the snows;
While, incessant in renewal,
  The Arch rekindled grows,
Till again the gem and jewel
  Whirl in blinding overthrows—­
Till, prevailing and transcending,
  Lo, the Glory perfect there,
And the contest finds an ending,
  For repose is in the air.

But the foamy Deep unsounded,
  And the dim and dizzy ledge,
And the booming roar rebounded,
  And the gull that skims the edge! 
    The Giant of the Pool
    Heaves his forehead white as wool—­
Toward the Iris every climbing
  From the Cataracts that call—­
Irremovable vast arras
  Draping all the Wall.

    The Generations pouring
      From times of endless date,
    In their going, in their flowing
      Ever form the steadfast State;
    And Humanity is growing
      Toward the fullness of her fate.

        Thou Lord of hosts victorious,
          Fulfill the end designed;
        By a wondrous way and glorious
          A passage Thou dost find—­
          A passage Thou dost find: 
        Hosanna to the Lord of hosts,
          The hosts of human kind.