Clash out, glad bells, from every rocking steeple! 
Banners, adance with triumph, bend your staves! 
    And from every mountain-peak
    Let beacon-fire to answering beacon speak,
    Katahdin tell Monadnock, Whiteface he,
And so leap on in light from sea to sea,
        Till the glad news be sent
        Across a kindling continent,
Making earth feel more firm and air breathe braver:  390
’Be proud! for she is saved, and all have helped to save her! 
    She that lifts up the manhood of the poor,
    She of the open soul and open door,
    With room about her hearth for all mankind! 
    The fire is dreadful in her eyes no more;
    From her bold front the helm she doth unbind,
    Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin,
    And bids her navies, that so lately hurled
    Their crashing battle, hold their thunders in,
    Swimming like birds of calm along the unharmful shore. 400
    No challenge sends she to the elder world,
    That looked askance and hated; a light scorn
    Plays o’er her mouth, as round her mighty knees
    She calls her children back, and waits the morn
Of nobler day, enthroned between her subject seas.’

XII

Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release! 
  Thy God, in these distempered days,
  Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of his ways,
And through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace! 
    Bow down in prayer and praise! 410
No poorest in thy borders but may now
Lift to the juster skies a man’s enfranchised brow. 
O Beautiful! my Country! ours once more! 
Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair
O’er such sweet brows as never other wore,
    And letting thy set lips,
    Freed from wrath’s pale eclipse,
The rosy edges of their smile lay bare,
What words divine of lover or of poet
Could tell our love and make thee know it, 420
Among the Nations bright beyond compare? 
    What were our lives without thee? 
    What all our lives to save thee? 
    We reck not what we gave thee;
    We will not dare to doubt thee,
But ask whatever else, and we will dare!

L’ENVOI

TO THE MUSE

Whither?  Albeit I follow fast,
  In all life’s circuit I but find,
Not where thou art, but where thou wast,
  Sweet beckoner, more fleet than wind! 
I haunt the pine-dark solitudes,
  With soft brown silence carpeted,
And plot to snare thee in the woods: 
  Peace I o’ertake, but thou art fled! 
I find the rock where thou didst rest,
The moss thy skimming foot hath prest; 10
  All Nature with thy parting thrills,
Like branches after birds new-flown;
  Thy passage hill and hollow fills
With hints of virtue not their own;