A temple may'st thou be, A temple by the everlasting sea, For the high goddess, Ideality, Set like a star, Above the peaks of dark reality: Shining afar Above the deeds of War, Within the shrine of Love, whose face men mar With Militarism, That is the prism Through which they gaze with eyes obscured of Greed, At the white light of God's Eternity, The comfort of the world, the soul's great need, That beacons Earth indeed, Breaking its light intense With turmoil and suspense And failing human Sense.
From thee a higher Creed Shall be evolved. The broken lights resolved Into one light again, of glorious light, Between us and the Everlasting, that is God.-- The all-confusing fragments, that are night, Lift up thy rod Of knowledge and from Truth's eyeballs strip The darkness, and in armor of the Right, Bear high the standard of imperishable light! Cry out, "Awake!--I slept awhile!--Awake! Again I take My burden up of Truth for Jesus' sake, And stand for what he stood for, Peace and Thought, And all that's Beauty-wrought Through doubt and dread and ache, By which the world to good at last is brought!"
No more with silence burdened, when the Land Was stricken by the hand Of war, she rises, and assumes her stand For the Enduring; setting firm her feet On what is blind and brute: Still holding fast With honor to the past, Speaking a trumpet word, Which shall be heard As an authority, no longer mute.
Again, yea, she shall stand For what Truth means to Man For science and for Art and all that can Make life superior to the things that weight The soul down, things of hate Instead of love, for which the world was planned; May she demand Faith and inspire it; Song to lead her way Above the crags of Wrong Into the broader day; And may she stand For poets still; poets that now the Land Needs as it never needed; such an one As he, large Nature's Son Lanier, who with firm hand Held up her magic wand Directing deep in music such as none Has ever heard Such music as a bird Gives of its soul, when dying, And unconscious if it's heard.
So let her rise, mother of greatness still, Above all temporal ill; Invested with all old nobility, Teaching the South decision, self control And strength of mind and soul; Achieving ends that shall embrace the whole Through deeds of heart and mind; And thereby bind Its effort to an end And reach its goal.