Classic Poem

Though many land Italia's clime,
And call Helvetia's land sublime,
Tell Gallia's praise in prose and rhyme,
And worship old Hispania:
The winds of Heaven never fanned,
The circling sunlight never spanned
The borders of a better land
Than our own Indiana.

Encrowned with forests grand and old,
Enthroned on mineral wealth untold,
Coining her soil to yellow gold,
Through labor's great arcana.
She fosters commerce, science, art,
With willing hands and generous heart,
And sends to many a foreign mart
Products of Indiana.

Where late the birchen wigwam stood,
Or Indian braves their game pursued,
And Indian maids were won and wooed,
By light of soft Diana,
Fair cities as by magic rise,
With church towers pointing to the skies,
And schools that charm the world's wide eyes
To fair young Indiana.

And, where some fifty years ago,
The settler's wagon lumbered slow
Through mud, and mire, and frozen snow,
O'er hillside and savannah,
The steam car, with its fiery eyes,
Like some mad demon pants and flies,
Startling the echoes with its cries
Throughout all Indiana.

Not to old realms, with palace piles
And crowned kings—nor sea-girt isles,
Wherein perpetual summer smiles
On bread-fruit and banana,
Could we, in word or thought compare,
The free domain, the balmy air,
The silver streams and valleys fair,
Of genial Indiana.

With kindly word and friendly hand
She welcomes sons of every land,

From Hammerfest to Samarcand,
From India to Britannia;
And many a toiler, sore opprest
In olden lands, has found his quest—
A happy homestead—on the breast
Of fruitful Indiana.

She gives the hungry stranger bread;
Her helpless poor are clothed and fed
As freely as the Father spread
The feast of mystic manna.
The sick in body, wrecked in mind,
The orphaned child, the dumb, the blind,
A free and safe asylum find
In generous Indiana.

Her gentle mothers, pure and good,
In stately homes or cabins rude,
Are types of noble womanhood;
Her girls are sweet and cannie;
Her sons, among the bravest, brave,
Call no man master, no man slave—
Holding the heritage God gave
In fee to Indiana.

But even while our hearts rejoice
In the dear home-land of our choice,
We should, with one united voice,
Give thanks, and sing Hosanna
To Him whose love and bounteous grace
Gave to the people of our race
A freehold, an abiding place,
In fertile Indiana.