My Country
O beautiful, my country!
Be thine a nobler care,
Than all thy wealth of commerce,
Thy harvest waving fair;
Be it thy pride to lift up
The manhood of the poor;
Be thou to the oppressed
Fair freedom’s open door.
For thee our fathers suffered,
For thee they toiled and prayed;
Upon thy holy altar
Their willing lives they laid.
Thou hast no common birthright;
Grand memories on thee shine,
The blood of pilgrim nations,
Commingled, flows in thine.
O beautiful, our country!
Round thee in love we draw;
Thine is the grace of freedom,
The majesty of law.
Be righteousness thy scepter,
Justice thy diadem;
And on thy shining forehead
Be peace the crowning gem.
—F. L. Hosmer.
What Is The Grass
A child said, “What is the grass” fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
Or, I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrance designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner’s name some way in the comers, that we may see and remark, and say, “Whose?”
—Walt Whitman.
Alternate Reading: John 13: 21-30.