Our father's God! from out whose hand
The centuries fall like grains of sand,
We meet to-day, united, free,
And loyal to our land and Thee,
To thank Thee for the era done,
And trust Thee for the opening one.

Here, where of old, by Thy design,
Our fathers spake that word of Thine,
Whose echo is the glad refrain
Of rended bolt and falling chain,
To grace our festal time from all
The zones of earth our guests we call.

Be with us while the New World greets
The Old World thronging all its streets,
Unveiling all the triumphs won
By art or toil beneath the sun;
And unto common good ordain
This rivalship of hand and brain.

Thou who hast here in concord furled
The war-flags of a gathered world,
Beneath our Western skies fulfil
The Orient's mission of good-will,
And, freighted with love's Golden Fleece,
Send back its Argonauts of peace.

For art and labor met in truce,
For beauty made the bride of use,
We thank Thee; but, withal, we crave
The austere virtues, strong to save,
The honor proof to place or gold,
The manhood, never bought or sold.

Oh make Thou us through centuries long,
In peace secure, in justice strong;
Around our gift of freedom draw
The safeguards of Thy righteous law;
And, cast in some diviner mould,
Let the new cycle shame the old.

Keen the wind from Fuji's height,
⁠Sweeping o'er the plain,
Nips the leaves with iron might
⁠And drives the icy rain.
Makes the brook a torrent run,
Hides with flying clouds the sun,
⁠And howls a mad refrain.

Weary lag the traveller's feet
⁠On the mountain way;
Dark the path — the cruel sleet
⁠Dims the light of day.
The village buried from his view,
Where to his love he bade adieu,
⁠And heard her parting lay.

O she must wait his coming long,
⁠As swallows wait the spring!
Although her lips have framed the song
⁠To give him welcoming;
High on the mountain-path the storm
Has veiled in snow her lover's form,
⁠And she his dirge must sing.

Bright faces come and go, fair shapes
⁠Dance up and down the wall;
A presence in the crowded room
⁠Takes precedence of all.
We see it night and day, howe'er
⁠By shine or shadow crost, —
A little vacant spot, wherefrom
⁠One little face is lost.

The sound of music swells and falls,
⁠And laughter fills our ears, —
A silence, hollowed out of life,
⁠Is all our spirit hears.
That silence, like a hush of prayer,
⁠Can drown the loudest speech,
And, piercing sharp through laugh and song,
⁠Our inmost sense can reach.

No thunder of the outer world,
⁠No burning rage of pain,
No passion-storms of love or grief
⁠That beat on heart and brain,
Beat down with such constraining strength
⁠The vital forces there,
As that dull, soundless ache of loss
⁠Which lonely mourners bear.

O little garments in the drawer,
⁠With such precision spread!
O little chair against the wall!
⁠O little cradle-bed,
Uncurtained, in the silent room,
⁠And pillowless and cold!
O mother's arms and tender hands,
⁠That have no babe to hold!

We know full well the worth and wealth
⁠Of which we are bereft;
But where are words wherewith to tell
⁠The emptiness that's left! —
Wherewith to span that shoreless void,
⁠Sound its unfathomed deeps,
And picture to the common sense
⁠The sacred thing it keeps.