They have chained your giant strength for the cause
Of trade in men.
But a man of the West, a denizen of your shore,
Wholly American,
Compact, clear-eyed, nerved like a hunter,
Who knew no faster beat of the heart,
Except in charity, forgiveness, peace;
Generous, plain, democratic,
Scarcely appraising himself at full,
A spiritual rifleman and chopper,
Of the breed of Daniel Boone--
This man, your child, O, Father of Waters,
Waked from the winter sleep of a useless day
By the rising sun of a Freedom bright and strong,
Slipped like the loosened snows of your mountain streams
Into a channel of fate as sure as your own--
A fate which said: till the thing be done
Turn not back nor stop.
Ulysses of the great Atlantis,
Wholly American,
Patient, silent, tireless, watchful, undismayed
Grant at Fort Donelson, Grant at Vicksburg,
Leading the sons of choppers and riflemen,
Pushing on as the hunters and farmers
Poured from the mountains into the West,
Freed you, Father of Waters,
To flow to the Gulf and be one
With the earth-engirdled tides of time.
And gave us states made ready for the hands
Wholly American: