O BEAUTIFUL! MY COUNTRY!
Reading edition
By James Russell Lowell
This is a part of Lowell's "Commemoration Ode" written in honor of the heroes of Harvard College, killed in the Civil War. Lowell here imagines America as a beautiful woman—a Goddess of Liberty—now fully restored to her worshipers.
O beautiful! My Country! ours once more! Smoothing thy gold of war-disheveled hair O'er such sweet brows as never other wore, . . . What were our lives without thee? What all our lives to save thee?5 We reck not what we gave thee; We will not dare to doubt thee, But ask whatever else, and we will dare!