SHERMAN

Lest it be said One sits at ease Westward, beyond the outer seas, Who thanks me not that my decrees Fall light as love, nor bends her knees To make one prayer That peace my latter days may find,— Lest all these bitter things be said And we be counted as one dead, Alone and unaccredited I give this message to the wind: Secure in thy security, Though children, not unwise are we; And filled with unplumbed love for thee,— Call thou but once, if thou wouldst see! Where the grey bergs Come down from Labrador, and where The long Pacific rollers break Against the pines, for thy word’s sake Each listeneth,—alive, awake, And with thy strength made strong to dare. And though our love is strong as spring, Sweet is it, too,—as sweet a thing As when the first swamp-robins sing Unto the dawn their welcoming. Yea, and more sweet Than the clean savour of the reeds Where yesterday the June floods were,— Than perfumed piles of new cut fir That greet the forest-worshipper Who follows where the wood-road leads. But unto thee are all unknown These things by which the worth is shown Of our deep love; and, near thy throne, The glory thou hast made thine own Hath made men blind To all that lies not to their hand,— But what thy strength and theirs hath done: As though they had beheld the sun When the noon-hour and March are one Wide glare across our white, white land. For what reck they of Empire,—they, Whose will two hemispheres obey? Why shouldst thou not count us but clay For them to fashion as they may In London-town? The dwellers in the wilderness Rich tribute yield to thee their friend; From the flood unto the world’s end Thy London ships ascend, descend, Gleaning—and to thy feet regress. Yea, surely they think not at all Of us, nor note the outer wall Around thy realm imperial Our slow hands rear as the years fall; Which shall withstand The stress of time and night of doom; For we, who build, build of our love,— Not as they built, whose empires throve And died,—for what knew they thereof In old Assyria, Egypt, Rome? Therefore, in my dumb country’s stead, I come to thee, unheralded, Praying that Time’s peace may be shed Upon thine high, anointed head, —One with the wheat, The mountain pine, the prairie trail, The lakes, the thronging ships thereon, The valley of the blue Saint John, New France—her lilies,—not alone Empress, I bid thee, Hail! Francis Sherman.