O Daughters of the brave, well ye abjure
The fiend and all his works. Ye know his smiles
Are fire-fly flare at gloaming, lighting miles
Of snake-boughed forests down to swamps, impure
From mind and soul decay; hence are heart-sure
That creed and racial hatreds are his wiles,
For God is Love, and Love draws, reconsiles,
And is the strength that makes our land endure.
O Mothers, as you lift your babes and gaze
Into their eyes, your love runs through their vains
In crimson flushes--oh, your love that pains
At any of God's creatures hurt! that stays;
The heavens may pass away, but that remains,
Being of Christ, who walks earth Mother-ways.
V
Oh, like your sires, you, too, know Freedom's worth
To Human Spirit. For its liberation,
A God unrealmed himself by tribulation,
And was an out-cast on a scornful earth.
Christ is no myth and, since with Human birth
He forms new Heavens for blissful habitation--
There unto is the Freedom of the Nation;
All other trend is down to dark and dearth.
When from the darkness rainbowed birth comes pouring,
Your virtue heeds the voice, Eternity--
Re-echos: "Let them come." 'Tis Nature's plea
For broadening progress; Nay, 'tis God imploring
The Human to take strength for Liberty,
Truth, Honor, to catch up to the stars, a-soaring.