Thus the ancient legend runneth, with its plaint of hopeless doom, Bearing in its heart the fragrance of the Truth's enduring bloom, Standing in the light of knowledge, where developed ages meet, We can read the mystic omens which O-kis-ko's eyes did greet. And to us they seem the symbols of what coming ages brought, Realization gives the answer, which in vain the Savage sought. For we know the silver arrow, fatal to all sorcery, Was the gleaming light of Progress speeding from across the sea, Before which the Red Man vanished, shrinking from its silvery light As the magic waters yielded to the silver arrow's blight. And the tiny shoot with leaflets, by the sunlight warmed to life, Was the Vine of Civilization in the wilderness of strife; With no friendly hand to tend it, yet it grew midst slight and wrong, Taking root in other places,[AC]--growing green, and broad, and strong, Till its vigor knew no weakness, with its branches flower-fraught, Till a prosp'rous land it sheltered where th' oppressed a refuge sought, Till its fruit made all who labored 'neath its shade both bold and free, Till a people dwelt beneath it strong to meet their destiny.
Now beneath its spreading branches dwells a nation brave and free, Raising glad, triumphant pæans for the boon of Liberty; Holding fast the Holy Cross-Sign,--Heirs of Duty and of Light,-- Still they speed the arrow, Progress, on its civilizing flight; Keeping bright the Fires of Freedom, where Man, Brotherhood may know, For God's breath upon the altar keeps the sacred flame aglow.
[Footnote AC: Jamestown and Plymouth Rock.]
NOTE _a_.--"We viewed the land about us, being where we first landed very sandy and low towards the water side, but so full of grapes as the very beating and surge of the sea overflowed them, of which we found such plenty, as well there as in all places else, both on the sand and on the green soil, on the hills as in the plains, as well on every little shrub, as also climbing towards the tops of high cedars, that I think in all the world the like abundance is not to be found."--_First voyage of Amadas and Barlowe, 1584. From Hakluyt._
NOTE _b_.--"The second of July we found shoal water, where we smelled so sweet and so strong a smell as if we had been in the midst of some delicate garden abounding with all kinds of odoriferous flowers, by which we were assured that the land could not be far distant."--_First voyage of Amadas and Barlowe, 1584._