Classic Poem

Between her rivers and beside the sea,
My Mother-land! What fairer land can be?

The lyric rapture in her leaping rills,
The crown-imperial on her purple hills.

Her lips are pure that never breathed a curse;
Her hands are white before the universe.

Behold the witness of the King of Peace
Clear, in the splendor of her dew-lit fleece.

And lo! the midnight of her shrouded mine
Garners the radiance of the years to shine.

Yea! the swart Gnome that bides his time below
Shall rise at last in full regalia glow!

And the great Alchemist shall teach the Sun
That Earth's great gloom and Life's great light are one!

Oh, sweetest souls that ever rose by prayer
White from the furnace-dungeon of despair!

That wrought new grace from battle's chaos-mould,
And reared new shrines from ashes not yet cold.

Not cold!—from flames the strangest that have given
From all this world, an altar-smoke to Heaven!

Crowned on the cross, above high-fetter line,
They smile on hate with Love's own smile divine.

Prouder than hills that plume thy star-ward crest,
Sweeter than dales that dimple at thy breast.

Richer than Rome! when God's great chariot rolls,
Imperial Georgia! count thy children's souls.