The Centennial at Philadelphia

Charlotte Fiske Bates

July 4, 1876.

Here stands the Nation's mighty Thought,
With look and attitude sublime;
Both her colossal arms stretched out,
Seeking two equal bounds of time.
One hand rests on the very day
When Freedom struggled from the womb;
The other, groping on its way,
Finds all this multitude a tomb!
The eyes of Thought, first backward cast,
Send fiery paeans from their deep;
But, searching all her country's past,
Some great, immortal tears they weep.
The eyes of Thought now onward tend,
Peopling the far, white mystery
With life that shall from ours descend,
A mighty concourse of the free.
Here stands the Nation's mighty Thought!
A hundred years behind, before,
Her arm and eye have reached, and brought
What make us one forevermore.
This centre of the Keystone State
Locks many nations in its hold,
And all the clashing notes of fate
To harmony has Peace controlled.
Great City of Fraternal Love,
How well the worlds have met in thee;
So, whither all the nations move,
God's Peace-built City let it be!
Unto the everlasting Now,
The Nation's Thought uplifts her sight;
An awful splendor on her brow,
With Patmos glory in its light.