Edmund Clarence Stedman

Mater Coronata

I

All things on Earth that are accounted great
Are dedicate to conflict at first breath;
Nature herself knows grandly to await
The masterful estate
Which from her secret germ Time conjureth,

II

The elements that buffet man decree
His lustihood prevailing to the end;
The free air foreordains him to be free;—
Their stern persistency
The ages to his resolute spirit lend.

III

So rose our Academe since that far day
When reverently the grave forefathers came,
In council by the shoal ancestral bay,
To speak the word,—to pray,—
To found the enduring shrine without a name.

IV

Ye, at the witchery of whose golden wand
New cloisters rise to splendor in a night,—
Find here your model! Here the barriers stand
That were not made to hand,
That have the puissance Time confers aright.

V

Born with the exit of that iron age
When Nova Anglia to New-England grew,
Learning's new child put up a hermitage,
Whereof no godly mage
As from a mount the boundaries foreknew;

VI

No oracle betokened the obscure
Grim years encountering which the elders bowed,
Yet knew not faintness nor discomfiture,
But set the buttress sure
That should upstay these tabernacles proud;

VII

These fanes, that bred their patriot to vie
In steadfastness, erect of thought to live,
Or, when the country bade, undauntedly
Without lament to die
Save that he had but one young life to give.

VIII

Twice, thrice, and yet again, that sovereign call
Rang not in vain; nor from this ancient grove
Hath ceased to broaden, as the days befall,
The famed processional
Of the mind's workmen who to greatness move.

IX

No feebling she that reared them, no forlorn
And wrinkled mother lingering in the gray;
Fadeless she smiles to see her shield upborne:
It is her morn, her morn!
The past, but twilight ushering in her day.

X

Strong Mother! thou who from the doorways old,
Or housed anew in beauty renovate,
Hast spread thine heritage a hundred-fold,—
Hast wrought us to thy mould
Whether the bread of ease or toil we ate;

XI

Thou who hast made thy sons coequal all,
The least one of thy progeny a peer
Wearing for worth not birth his coronal,—
The watchmen on thy wall
Wax proud this sundawn of thy cyclic year!

XII

The lustres of a new-won firmament,
Spanned from the height thine upmost turrets crown,
Relume the course whereon thy thoughts are bent,—
Whereto the words are sent
That bid thy children pass the lineage down.

XIII

Ere yet that rainbowed dome thou seest complete,
Mankind, be sure, shall Earth more nobly share;
No churl his measure shall unduly mete;
And where are set thy feet
Life shall be counted lordlier and more fair.

XIV

Science shall yield new spells for man to know,
And bid thee consecrate to mortal weal
All that her henchmen in thy gates bestow;
Nor lofty then, nor low,
Save to his race each ministrant is leal.

XV

Thine be it still the undying antique speech,
The grove's high thought, the wing'd Hellenic lyre,
Unvexed of soul thy acolytes to teach,—
So shall they also reach
Their lamps, and light them at a quenchless fire;

XVI

And wield the trebly-welded English tongue,
Their vantage by inheritance divine,
Invincible the laurelled lists among
Wherein the bards have sung
Or sages deathless made the lettered line;

XVII

Till now, for that sure Pentecost to come,
The globe's four winds are winnowing apace
Fresh harvestings of speech, in one to sum
A world's curriculum
When East and West forgather face to face.

XVIII

Thus first imbued, thy coming host the clues
To broad achievement shall descry the more;
What thou hast taught them shall in statecraft use
Greatly; nor can they choose
But follow where the omens blaze before!

XIX

Even as our Platonist's exultant soul
That westward course of empire visioned far,
Now round the sheen, to Asia and the Pole,
Time charts upon our scroll
The empearlèd pathways of an orient star.

XX

There the swart Malay's juster league begun
Takes from our hands the tables of the law;
The mild Hawaiian raises to the sun
The folds himself had won
Ere the Antilles their deliverance saw.

XXI

Time's drama speeds: albeit, alas! its chief
Protagonist, augmenter of the State,
Fell as the Prompter turned that unread leaf,—
And oh, what tragic grief
Just when consummate towered the action great!

XXII

To strong brave hands the rule, the large intent,
Have passed. Nor tears alone that some far plan
Required the master's life-blood interblent—
To point his monument
And leave once more the likeness of a man.

XXIII

But we, Yale's living multitude rebrought
From farthest outposts of the pine and palm,—
We know her battlements of iron wrought,
Her captains fearing naught,
Her voice of welcome rising like a psalm.

XXIV

We know the still indissoluble chain
Wherewith the sons are to the Mother bound;
Nor unto any shall she call in vain
Who in her heart have lain
And trod the memoried precinct of her ground.

XXV

God dower her endowering her brood
With knowledge, beauty, valor, from her breast,—
Ingathering from the peopled town, the wood,
The island solitude,
The land's most loyal and its manfullest!

XXVI

God keep her! Yea, that Soul her soul endure,—
That Spirit of the interstellar void,
That mightier Presence than the fathers knew,—
The source of light wherethrough
Heaven's planets shine in joy and strength deployed.

XXVII

That Power,—even that which doth impart a share
And semblance of divinity to our kind,—
Hold thee, dear Mother, here and everywhere,—
Thee and thy sons,—in care,
Through centuries yet still loftier use to find!