Land where the banners wave last in the sun,
Blazoned with star-clusters, many in one,
Floating o'er prairie and mountain and sea;
Hark! 't is the voice of thy children to thee!

Here at thine altar our vows we renew
Still in thy cause to be loyal and true,—
True to thy flag on the field and the wave,
Living to honor it, dying to save!

Mother of heroes! if perfidy's blight
Fall on a star in thy garland of light,
Sound but one bugle-blast! Lo! at the sign
Armies all panoplied wheel into line!

Hope of the world! thou hast broken its chains,—
Wear thy bright arms while a tyrant remains,
Stand for the right till the nations shall own
Freedom their sovereign, with Law for her throne!

Freedom! sweet Freedom! our voices resound,
Queen by God's blessing, unsceptred, uncrowned!
Freedom, sweet Freedom, our pulses repeat,
Warm with her life-blood, as long as they beat!

Fold the broad banner-stripes over her breast,—
Crown her with star-jewels Queen of the West!
Earth for her heritage, God for her friend,
She shall reign over us, world without end!

Though the day of my destiny's over, 
And the star of my fate hath declined, 
Thy soft heart refused to discover 
The faults which so many could find; 
Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted, 
It shrunk not to share it with me, 
And the love which my spirit hath painted 
It never hath found but in thee. 

Then when nature around me is smiling, 
The last smile which answers to mine, 
I do not believe it beguiling, 
Because it reminds me of thine; 
And when winds are at war with the ocean, 
As the breasts I believed in with me, 
If their billows excite an emotion, 
It is that they bear me from thee. 

Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd, 
And its fragments are sunk in the wave, 
Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd 
To pain — it shall not be its slave. 
There is many a pang to pursue me: 
They may crush, but they shall not contemn — 
They may torture, but shall not subdue me — 
'T is of thee that I think — not of them. 

Though human, thou didst not deceive me, 
Though woman, thou didst not forsake, 
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me, 
Though slander'd, thou never could'st shake, 
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me, 
Though parted, it was not to fly, 
Though watchful, 't was not to defame me, 
Nor, mute, that the world might belie. 

Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it, 
Nor the war of the many with one — 
If my soul was not fitted to prize it, 
'T was folly not sooner to shun: 
And if dearly that error hath cost me, 
And more than I once could foresee, 
I have found that, whatever it lost me, 
It could not deprive me of thee. 

From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd, 
Thus much I at least may recall, 
It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd 
Deserved to be dearest of all: 
In the desert a fountain is springing, 
In the wide waste there still is a tree, 
And a bird in the solitude singing, 
Which speaks to my spirit of thee.