Ye are builders little builders,
Not with mortar, brick and stone,
But your work is far more glorious—
Ye are building freedom's throne.

Where the ocean never slumbers
Works the coral 'neath the spray,
By and by a reef or island
Rears its head to greet the day

'Then the balmy rains and sunshine
Scatter treasures o'er the soil,
'Till a place for human footprints,
Crown the little builder's toil.

When the stately ships sweep o'er them,
Cresting all the sea with foam,
Little think these patient toilers,
They are building man a home.

Do you ask me, precious children,
How your little hands can build,
That you love the name of freedom,
But your fingers are unskilled?

Not on thrones or in proud temples,
Does fair freedom seek her rest;
No, her chosen habitations,
Are the hearts that love her best.

Would you gain the highest freedom?
Live for God and man alone,
Then each heart in freedom's temple,
Will be like a living stone.

Fill your minds with useful knowledge,
Learn to love the true and right;
Thus you'll build the throne of freedom,
On a pedestal of light.

As a pale phantom with a lamp
Ascends some ruin's haunted stair,
So glides the moon along the damp
Mysterious chambers of the air.

Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed,
As if this phantom, full of pain,
Were by the crumbling walls concealed,
And at the windows seen again.

Until at last, serene and proud
In all the splendor of her light,
She walks the terraces of cloud,
Supreme as Empress of the Night.

I look, but recognize no more
Objects familiar to my view;
The very pathway to my door
Is an enchanted avenue.

All things are changed. One mass of shade,
The elm-trees drop their curtains down;
By palace, park, and colonnade
I walk as in a foreign town.

The very ground beneath my feet
Is clothed with a diviner air;
White marble paves the silent street
And glimmers in the empty square.

Illusion! Underneath there lies
The common life of every day;
Only the spirit glorifies
With its own tints the sober gray.

In vain we look, in vain uplift
Our eyes to heaven, if we are blind,
We see but what we have the gift
Of seeing; what we bring we find.