With sapphire draperies of light Is hung the sombre pines; Filling each valley, every height With sacerdotal lines-- Shrines, where, like priests with worship vestured, The forests bow and, heavenly gestured, Lift high the chalice of the sun, Intoning, "Night is done!"
Enormously it lifts Its tower against the splendor of the west; Like some wild dream that drifts Before the mind, and at the will's behest,-- Enchantment-based, gigantic steel and stone,-- Is given permanence; A concrete fact, Complete, alone, Glorious, immense, Such as no nation here on Earth has known: Epitomizing all That is American, that stands for youth, And strength and truth; That's individual, And beautiful and free,-- Resistless strength and tireless energy.
Even as a cataract, Its superb fact Suggests vast forces Nature builds with--Joy, And Power and Thought, She to her aid has brought For eons past, will bring for eons yet to be, Shaping the world to her desire: the three Her counsellors constantly, Her architects, through whom her dreams come true,-- Her workmen, bringing forth, With toil that shall not cease, Mountains and plains and seas, That make the Earth The glory that it is: And, one with these, Such works of man as this, This building, towering into the blue, A beacon, round which like an ocean wide, Circles and flows the restless human tide.
Master of human harmonics, where gong And harp and violin and flute accord; Each instrument confessing you its lord, Within the deathless orchestra of Song. Albeit at times your music may sound wrong To our dulled senses, and its meaning barred To Earth's slow understanding, never marred Your message brave: clear, and of trumpet tongue. Poet-revealer, who, both soon and late, Within an age of doubt kept clean your faith, Crying your cry of "With the world all's well!" How shall we greet you from our low estate, Keys in the keyboard that is life and death, The organ whence we hear your music swell?
Riley, whose pen has made the world your debtor, Whose Art has kept you young through sixty years, Brimming our hearts with laughter and with tears, Holding her faith pure to the very letter: We come to you to-day, both man and woman, And happy little children, girl and boy,-- To laurel you with all our love and joy, And crown you for the dreams your pen made human: For Orphant Annie and for Old Aunt Mary, The Raggedty Man, who never will grow older, And all the kindly folks from Griggsby's Station, Immortal throngs, with Spirk and Wunk and Faery, Who swarm behind you, peering o'er your shoulder, Sharing with you the blessings of a Nation.