Page:Florence Earle Coates Poems 1898 90.jpg

 THE LIBERTY-BELL

(SENT FROM PHILADELPHIA TO ATLANTA, OCTOBER 4, 1895)

pomp attendant, and in garlands drest,

I journey from my sacred home once more;

Not this time to the new, triumphant West,

But to a land more dear to me of yore:

A land in memory sweet as the perfume

Of twining jasmine and magnolia bloom.

Though old and broken, for that memory's sake—

The memory of honored things gone by,

I will forget my length of years, and make

This pilgrimage unto her Southern sky,

So Georgia's children, too, my face may know,

And wreathe me proudly with their mistletoe.

Their fathers knew me, and in that great hour

When in the Hall of Freedom, since my home,

They signed the Charter, born of love and power,

That made them one, I, from the lofty dome 90