Song of a Thousand Years
Lift up your eyes desponding freemen!
Fling to the winds your needless fears!
He who unfurl'd your beauteous banner,
Says it shall wave a thousand years!
"A thousand years!" my own Columbia!
'Tis the glad day so long foretold!
'Tis the glad morn whose early twilight
Washington saw in times of old.
What if the clouds, one little moment,
Hide the blue sky where morn appears --
When the bright sun, that tints them crimson,
Rises to shine a thousand years?
Tell the great world those bless-ed tidings!