I see him standing at his cabin-door,
And all his dreams are true as when he dreamed them;
But only shall they be fulfilled if we
Are mindful of the toil that gave him power,
Are brave to dare a wilderness of wrong;
So long shall Nature nourish us and Spring
Throw riches in the lap of man
As we beget no wasteful, weak-handed generations,
But bend us to the fruitful earth in toil.
Beyond the wall a new-plowed field lies steaming in the sun,
And down the road a merry group of children
Run toward the village school.
Hear, O hear! In the historian walls
Rises the beat and the tumult of the struggle for freedom.
Sacred, blood-stained walls, your peaceful front
Sheltered the fateful fires of Lexington;
Builded to fence green fields and keep the herds at pasture,
Ye became the frowning breastworks of stern battle;
Lowly boundaries of the freeman's farm,
Ye grew the rampart of a land at war;
And still ye cross the centuries
Between the ages of monarchs and the age
When farmers in their fields are kings.
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