VIII. AMERICANS ALL LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD1 EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN (1833-1908) Warden at ocean's gate, Thy feet on sea and shore, When time shall be no more! "My name is Liberty! I lift to God my hand; "The dark Earth lay in sleep, I sprang to height, reborn; 1 Stedman, who is remembered both for his poetry and his critical essays on American literature, is often called the banker-poet. He was a banker in Wall Street for over thirty years. From Poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman. Copyright, 1908, by Laura Stedman. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. Used by permission of the publishers. Then what a joyous shout "Beneath yon firmament The New World to the Old "O ye, whose broken spars "But ye that hither draw The justice that makes free, Avaunt, ye darkling brood! By Right my house hath stood: My throne is Law." O wonderful and bright, Front, in thy fiery might, The midnight and the gale; Guard well thy dwelling-place: AMERICA1 BAYARD TAYLOR (1825-1878) Foreseen in the vision of sages, She was born of the longing of ages, Nor shame of bondage has bowed her head. The unblenching Puritan will, And the strength of the danger-girdled race Of Holland, blend in a proud completeness. From the homes of all, where her being began, She took what she gave to Man; Justice, that knew no station, Belief, as soul decreed, Free air for aspiration, Free force for independent deed! 1 From "The National Ode," delivered in Independence Square, Philadelphia, July 4, 1876. From facsimile copy sent by the author to Joseph R. Osgood & Co., Boston, July 5, 1876. She takes but to give again, As the sea returns the rivers in rain; Is planted England's oaken-hearted mood, As e'er went worldward from the island-wall Fused in her candid light, To one strong race all races here unite; Tongues melt in hers, hereditary foemen Forget their sword and slogan, kith and clan : 'Twas glory, once, to be a Roman : She makes it glory, now, to be a man! THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN 1 JACOB RIIS (1849-1914) I have told the story of the making of an American. There remains to tell how I found out that he was made and finished at last. It was when I went back to see 1 Jacob Riis came to this country from Denmark as a young man and made his own way, becoming in course of time widely known as a writer and as a worker for the betterment of social conditions for the poor of New York City. From the author's autobiography, published under the title, "The Making of an American." Copyright, 1901, by The Macmillan Company, New York. Used by permission of the publishers. my mother once more, and, wandering about the country of my childhood's memories, had come to the city of Elsinore. There I fell ill of a fever and lay many weeks in the house of a friend upon the shore of the beautiful Oeresund. One day when the fever had left me, they rolled my bed into a room overlooking the sea. The sunlight danced upon the waves, and the distant mountains of Sweden were blue against the horizon. Ships passed under full sail up and down the great waterway of the nations. But the sunshine and the peaceful day bore no message to me. I lay moodily picking at the coverlet, sick and discouraged and sore- I hardly knew why, myself. Until all at once there sailed past, close inshore, a ship flying at the top the flag of freedom, blown out on the breeze till every star in it shone bright and clear. That moment I knew. Gone were illness, discouragement, and gloom! Forgotten weakness and suffering, the cautions of doctor and nurse! I sat up in bed and shouted, laughed, and cried by turns, waving my handkerchief to the flag out there. They thought I had lost my head, but I told them, No, thank God, I had found it and my heart, too, at last. I knew then that it was my flag; that my children's home was mine indeed; that I also had become an American in truth. And I thanked God, and, like unto the man sick of the palsy, arose from my bed and went home healed. |