Part 1 / Book 4 / Act 1 — HYMN OF THE WEST.[A]
Reading edition
WORLD'S FAIR, ST. LOUIS.
[Footnote A: Copyright 1904 by Robert Allan Reid.]
[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, 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 Their brood throughout Earth's greenest space, Land of the new and lordlier race!
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
[The foregoing was the official hymn of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis in 1904. It was written upon invitation of the Exposition authorities, and was sung at the opening of the Fair by a chorus of five hundred voices, to music written for it, also upon official invitation, by Professor John K. Paine, of Harvard University. It fitly concludes the poems of Peace, in this volume of "National Spirit."]