Poems (Sharpless)/Pennsylvania

by Frances M. Sharpless

PENNSYLVANIA

In conscious strength, my native State,
My own beloved Keystone State,
Rests, her appointed time to wait,
While 'neath the summer skies her fields
 Grow golden with the ripened grain,
 And rich with mingled sun and rain,
Her orchards all their fruitage yield.

And deep beneath the teeming soil,
Beneath the watered, wooded soil,
Rewarding hands of patient toil,
Are precious mines of iron ore;
 Hot sunshine all condensed in coal,
 That long before our ages roll,
Skirted as woods the moist rank shore.

Between New England's furious cant,
Their silly Puritanic cant,
Hypocrisy's last bare-faced rant,
And the hot South's impetuous shock
 She stands, as when two seas may meet,
 Howling around its gray grim feet
I've heard, may stand a mighty rock.

Calm as its shadow o'er the seas,
The wild, the tossing, raging seas,
So stands she, while her Master please,
Waiting until the gradual plan
 Shall bring her in th' appointed hour;
 When, with a shout of conscious power,
She shall produce the Man.

My native State! so near my heart!
So closely held within my heart,
Dearer than life itself thou art.
Loved with so fond, so proud a love,
 I long to hear the dread command,
 That bids thee show the iron hand
Beneath the velvet glove.