Classic Poem

The Genius of the West
Upon her high-seen throne,
Who greets the incoming guest
And loves him as her own;
The Genius of these States
She hears these modern pleas
For the closing of the gates
Of the highways of her seas.
" Fence not my realm, " she says, " build me no continent pen,
Still let my gates swing wide for all the sons of men. "

The Genius of these States,
She of the open hand,
Stands by the open gates
That look to every land:
" Come hence " (she hears the groans,
The distance-muffled din
Of millions crushed by thrones),
" Come hence and enter in.
Shut not my gates, " she says, " that front the in-flowing tide,
For all the sons of men still let my gates swing wide. "

" What! leave thy bolts withdrawn? "
Cry they of little faith,
" For Europe's voided spawn,
Spores of the Old World's death?
These monsters wallowing wide
In anarchy's black fen? "
" Peace, peace, it is my pride
To make these monsters men;
With the Great Builder work that knows not Greek or Jew,
And from an old-world stuff fashion a world anew.

" And in my new-built state
The tribes of men shall fuse,
And men no longer prate
Of Gentiles and of Jews:
Here seek no racial caste,
No social cleavage seek,
Here one, while time shall last,
Barbarian and Greek:
And here shall spring at length, in narrowing caste's despite,
That last growth of the world, the first Cosmopolite.

" A man not made of mud
My coming man shall be,
But of the mingled blood
Of every tribe is he.
The vigor of the Dane,
The deftness of the Celt,
The Latin suppleness of brain
In him shall fuse and melt;
The muscularity of soul of the strong West be blent
With the wise dreaminess that broods above the Orient.

" Here clashing creeds upraise
Their warring standards long,
Till the ferment of our days
Shall make our new wine strong.
Let thought meet thought in fight,
Let systems clash and clinch, —
The false must sink in night,
The truth yields not an inch.
No thought left loose, ungyved, can long a menace be
Within a tolerant land where every thought is free. "

The Genius of the West
Upon her high-seen throne
Thus greets the incoming guest
And clasps him as her own.
The Genius of these States
Puts by these modern pleas.
For the closing of the gates
Of the highways of her seas.
" Fence not my realm, " she says, " build me no continent pen,
Still let my gates swing wide for all the sons of men. "