James Gates Percival

The water is calm and still below, For the winds and waves are absent there,
And the sands are bright as the stars that glow In the motionless fields of upper air.

Hail to the land whereon we tread,
Our fondest boast! The sepulchres of mighty dead,
The truest hearts that ever bled,
Who sleep on glory’s brightest bed, A fearless host:
No slave is here:—our unchained feet,
Walk freely as the waves that beat
Our coast.

On thy fair bosom, silver lake, The wild swan spreads his snowy sail,
And round his breast the ripples break As down he bears before the gale.

Theirs is no vulgar sepulchre--green sods
Are all their monument, and yet it tells
A nobler history than pillared piles
Or the eternal pyramids.