VIII. AMERICANS ALL

LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD1

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN (1833-1908)

Warden at ocean's gate,

Thy feet on sea and shore,
Like one the skies await

When time shall be no more!
What splendors crown thy brow,
What bright dread angel Thou,
Dazzling the waves before
Thy station great?

"My name is Liberty!
From out a mighty land
I face the ancient sea,

I lift to God my hand;
By day in Heaven's light,
A pillar of fire by night,
At ocean's gate I stand
Nor bend the knee.

"The dark Earth lay in sleep,
Her children crouched forlorn,
Ere on the western steep

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
The quickened lands gave out,
And all the choir of morn
Sang anthems deep.

"Beneath yon firmament

The New World to the Old
My sword and summons sent,
My azure flag unrolled :
The Old World's hands renew
Their strength; the form ye view
Came from a living mold
In glory blent.

"O ye, whose broken spars
Tell of the storms ye met,
Enter fear not the bars
Across your pathway set;
Enter at Freedom's porch,
For you I lift my torch,
For you my coronet
Is rayed with stars.

"But ye that hither draw
To desecrate my fee,
Nor yet have held in awe

The justice that makes free,

Avaunt, ye darkling brood!

By Right my house hath stood:
My name is Liberty,

My throne is Law."

O wonderful and bright,
Immortal Freedom, hail!

Front, in thy fiery might,

The midnight and the gale;
Undaunted on this base

Guard well thy dwelling-place:
Till the last sun grow pale
Let there be Light!

AMERICA1

BAYARD TAYLOR (1825-1878)

Foreseen in the vision of sages,
Foretold when martyrs bled,

She was born of the longing of ages,
By the truth of the noble dead
And the faith of the living fed!
No blood in her lightest veins
Frets at remembered chains,

Nor shame of bondage has bowed her head.
In her form and features still

The unblenching Puritan will,
Cavalier honor, Huguenot grace,
The Quaker truth and sweetness,

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;
And gathers the chosen of her seed
From the hunted of every crown and creed.
Her Germany dwells by a gentler Rhine;
Her Ireland sees the old sunburst shine;
Her France pursues some dream divine;
Her Norway keeps his mountain pine;
Her Italy waits by the western brine;
And, broad-based under all,

Is planted England's oaken-hearted mood,
As rich in fortitude

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.