Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/181

MATER CORONATA XXII

To strong brave hands the rule, the large intent,

Have passed. Nor tears alone that some far plan

Required the master's life-blood interblent—

To point his monument

And leave once more the likeness of a man.

XXIII

But we, Yale's living multitude rebrought

From farthest outposts of the pine and palm,—

We know her battlements of iron wrought,

Her captains fearing naught,

Her voice of welcome rising like a psalm.

XXIV

We know the still indissoluble chain

Wherewith the sons are to the Mother bound;

Nor unto any shall she call in vain

Who in her heart have lain

And trod the memoried precinct of her ground.

XXV

God dower her endowering her brood

With knowledge, beauty, valor, from her breast,—

Ingathering from the peopled town, the wood,

The island solitude,

The land's most loyal and its manfullest!

XXVI

God keep her! Yea, that Soul her soul endure,—

That Spirit of the interstellar void,

That mightier Presence than the fathers knew,—

The source of light wherethrough

Heaven's planets shine in joy and strength deployed.

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