The candid valleys, like a woman's brow,
The mountains treading mightily toward the skies,
Turn dreams to visions—there's a vision now!
Of hills panoplied, fields of waving spears,
And a great campus shaken with flags and tears.
Why mourn thy dead, that are the world's possession?
These, our Immortals—shall we give them up
To the complaint of private loss and dole?
Nay—mourn for them, if mourn thou must,—
Grief is thy private treasure;
Thy soul alone can count its weight or measure.
But we who know they saved the world
Think of them joined to that unwithering throng,
Who in the long dread strife
Have thought and fought for Liberty:
When she was but a faint pulsation in the mind,
The faintest rootlet of a growing thought,
They nourished her with tears
