Lending their fiery youth and thoughtful age
To make thy sceptre strong,
And in the never-ending march of man
To higher things, still England leads the van._


VI.

In fifty years what change! The world is bound
In close communion, and a sentence flies
O'er half the earth ere yet the voice's sound
Upon the calm air dies.
Behold at England's feet her offspring pour
Their bounteous store;
To her each yields
The first fruits of its virgin fields;
Each country throws
Its hospitable portals open wide
To the great tide
That from the dense-thronged mother country flows.
New homes arise
By rivers once unknown, among whose reeds
The wild fowl fed, but now no longer dwells.
No more the bison feeds
Upon the prairie, for the once drear plain
Laughs in the sun and waves its golden grain.
By a slender chain
Ocean is linked to ocean, and the hum
Of labor in the wilderness foretells
The greatness of a nation yet to come.