Men of Virginia, for the Common-weal!

And to our Bethlehem ye who come to-day--
Ye who compose this multitude's array--
Ye who are here from mighty Northern marts
With frankincense and myrrh within your hearts--
Ye who are here from the gigantic West,
The offspring nurtured at Virginia's breast,
Which in development by magic seems
Straight to embody all that Progress dreams--
Ye who are here from summer-wedded lands--
From Carolina's woods to Tampa's sands,
From Florida to Texas broad and free
Where spreads the prairie, like a dark, green sea--
Ye whose bold fathers from Virginia went
In wilds to pitch brave enterprise's tent,
Spreading our faith and social system wide,
By which we stand peculiarly allied!--
Ye Southern men, whose work is but begun,
Whose course is on t'ward regions of the sun,
Whose brave battalions moved to tropic sods
Solemn and certain as though marching gods
Were ordered in their circumstance and state
Beneath the banner of resistless Fate!

Ye have been welcomed, Countrymen, by him [3]
Beside whose speech my rhetoric grows dim--
Whose thoughts are flint and steel--whose words are flame,
For they all stir us like some hero's name:
But once again the Commonwealth extends