Our First Century

It cannot be that men who are the seed
Of Washington should miss fame's true applause;
Franklin did plan us; Marshall gave us laws;
And slow the broad scroll grew a people's creed--
Union and Liberty! then at our need,
Time's challenge coming, Lincoln gave it pause,
Upheld the double pillars of the cause,
And dying left them whole--our crowning deed.

Such was the fathering race that made all fast,
Who founded us, and spread from sea to sea
A thousand leagues the zone of liberty,
And built for man this refuge from his past,
Unkinged, unchurched, unsoldiered; shamed were we,
Failing the stature that such sires forecast!