HAVE you seen by Potomac that shaft in the skies, From the meadows exulting to shine with the sun? — Now misty and gray as the clouds it defies, Now bright in the splendor its daring has won! The winds are its comrades, the lightnings, the storm; The first flush of dawn on its summit gleams fair; And the last ray of evening illumines its form Towering grand and alone in the limitless air. By Nile rise the Pyramids, wrapped in the shade Of ages that passed as the waves on the shore; And Karnak, majestic, whose vast colonnade A god might have fashioned for man to adore; And Baalbec uplifts like a vision divine Its wonder of beauty by Lebanon's wall; — But captive and slave reared in sorrow the shrine, The palace, the temple, the pyramid tall. To Freedom Potomac's proud obelisk towers, And Karnak and Baalbec in beauty outvies, For Washington's glory its grandeur empowers, And freemen with joy piled its stones to the skies! O Symbol of Liberty, matchless, sublime, Still soar from the meadows to shine with the sun, And see thy Republic, to uttermost time, The noble, the peerless, the Many in One! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A LEGEND OF BREGENZ by ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER ELEGIAC STANZAS by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH CEREMONIAL ODE; INTENDED FOR A UNIVERSITY by LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE THE JEW'S GIFT; A.D. 1200 by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH TO SAN FRANCISCO by S. J. ALEXANDER ST. MARTIN'S WALL by ANTON ALEXANDER VON AUERSPERG THE PACIFIC RAILWAY by C. R. BALLARD |