Ohio History Journal

OHIO.

 

 

BY J. J. BLISS, BUCYRUS.

Lo, next the Union stars and stripes.

Ohio's pennant streaming!

Lo, in the field of brightest blue,

The Buckeye emblem gleaming!

Come muses, then, in chorus join

To voice Ohio's praises;

Aright your sweetest notes attune

And choose your fairest phrases.

 

CHORUS:

Ohio, our Ohio, most favored by the fates!

Hurrah for dear Ohio, and our great United States.

 

Sing forests vast of stately trees,

Choice orchards ranked in order,

Sweet silver streams and lakelet gems

That fertile fields embroider.

Sing mineral wealth beneath the soil,

That ages long hath waited,-

Coal, iron, oil, gas, stone and clay,

For human use created.

 

CHORUS:

Sing folk who builded mystic mounds

On plains and bluffs so quaintly,

Entombing selves and handicraft

That tell their story faintly.

Sing Redmen speeding birch canoes

On sparkling lakes and rivers,

Or trailing deer and buffalo

With arrows, bows and quivers.

 

CHORUS:

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116      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

0, eldest Heir of Old Northwest,

Freeborn thy sons and daughters,

From Belle Riviere's majestic flow

To Erie's rolling waters!

Sage Cutler, Putnam and St. Clair

God-fathered thy rude childhood,

While pioneers of brawn and brain

Tamed virgin soil and wildwood.

 

 

CHORUS:

 

The richest, reddest, bravest blood

Of many mingled races

Hath won for thee, O Buckeye State

The most exalted places.

Great Garfield and McKinley, slain,

Enshrined in martyr glory,

But type a myriad laureled folk

Who grace thy golden story.

 

CHORUS:

 

O State supreme in thought and deed,

In statecraft, art and science,

In all progressive industry

And noble self-reliance!

When o'er our loved United States

Portentous war-clouds lower

Imperium in imperio,

How great thy martial power!

 

 

CHORUS:

 

The home, the school, the church, the state,

Earth's crowning evolutions,

In thee, Ohio, are renowned

And sacred institutions.