Columbia Triumphant

A NATION mourns. Across the sky
     Has crept a shadow of despair;
The song is hushed within the sigh;
     Columbia bows herself in prayer.

Ay, bows herself as bowed she when
     The noble Lincoln sank to rest,
And Garfield, chosen son of men,
     Slept with his hands across his breast.

Columbia, daughter of the skies,
     Child of the free-born and the brave,
In strength and beauty shall arise
     To wreath with love a new-made grave.

Still bright and brighter still shall gleam
     Her splendid stars as each new sun
Shall yet fulfill the deathless dream
     Of her immortal Washington.

Her precious past full-sanctified
     By golden deeds on land and sea,
Shall sit enthroned with truth beside
     The grander days that are to be.

McKinley sleeps. We shrine our dead
     And bathe with tears their hallowed graves
While kissed with sunshine overhead,
     “Old Glory”, still triumphant, waves.