THE CENTENNIAL ODE.
BY J. M. HARDING.
Columbia's pride, Ohio, grand and fair,
Where wealth and beauty are beyond
compare,
Where labor, truth and knowledge have
control,
Thy name is peer upon the honor roll.
Ohio, first-born of the great Northwest,
Nursed to thy statehood at the Nation's
breast
And taught wisdom of the Ordinance Rule-
No slav'ry chain but e'er the public
school,
Ohio, name for what is good and grand,
With pride we hail thee as our native
land;
With jealous pride we sing our heartfelt
lay
To laud thy name, this first Centennial
Day.
One hundred years and half as many more
Ago, from ripples on proud Erie's shore
Far to the south where, beautiful and
grand,
The placid river's wave kissed untrod
sand,
The dusky twilight of the forest old
Concealed the native Indian, wild and
bold.
Within the awe of that primeval wood
The white-skin captive, pining, lonely
stood
And longed to lift the prison veil to
roam
From savag'ry to join dear ones at home.
Here lived the greatest, noblest Indian
men,
Retreating from their Eastern glade and
glen,
They crossed the River, called this land
their own
And hoped to hunt and fish and live
alone.
Here came another Race. The renegade,
The scout, the trapper, followed each
his trade.
Here, too, the priest and bishop, with
sad face,
Converted souls, built missions,
"Tents of Grace."
But they are gone. The annals of the
strife
That brought to one race death, another
life,
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The Centennial Ode. 183
Have oft been writ, by deeds not free
from stains,
In noblest blood that coursed a race's
veins.
Then came forth through the gateway of
the West
That band of war-scarred soldiers, all
in quest
Of peaceful homes. Their river voyage
past,
The Mayflower of the West, her moorings
fast
To Buckeye faith. With noble, pure,
desire
Debarked that crew - to found a new
empire.
They brought with them their all; but
ere they came
The purest laws that Liberty could
frame.
More settlers followed them. With steady
stroke
And fire they cleared the land of native
oak,
And reared the cabin homes. Soon did
appear
The rude log schoolhouse of the pioneer.
One decade and a half of honest toil
Create a state of Freemen on Free soil.
One century of statehood - statehood
such
As all the World proclaims the guiding
touch
Of man's long strife for liberty, and
one
Full-gemmed with pure deeds that men
have done.
When Tyranny, in dark expiring throe,
A few times dared on our horizon show
A cloud of war, Ohio's noble sons
Were first to bear and last to stack
their guns
With Erie's waters mixed their crimson
blood;
They reached and crossed the Rio
Grande's flood;
They "Starred and Striped" the
Montezuma's halls,
They filled the ranks at Lincoln's
sev'ral calls,
And fought till Freedom won. Ohio's roll
Was near Four Hundred Thousand men, each
soul
Free born and taught, for that great
civil strife.
Ohio men in ev'ry fight were rife,
In cabinet and battle camp each plan,
A Stanton, Chase, a Sherman, Sheridan
Or Grant direction gave. The slave is
free.
The breeze but one Flag floats from sea
to sea.
Pure, noble women, honest, learned men
For peace and progress here have ever
been,
184 Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.
Each morning's breeze, throughout our
hills and dells,
Wafts on its wings chimes of ten
thousand bells;
Ten thousand fields of sheep and kine
give voice;
Ten thousand whistling factories
rejoice;
Four million people rise, from slumber
sweet
In happy homes, their daily tasks to
meet,
Ohio, pearl of Western forest sea,
Where lived a Race in dark antiquity,
To speak to us of industry and toil
With tongues entombed in mounds of clay
and soil;
Ohio, guardian of eternal right,
The lamp of justice burned but dimly
bright
Till thou, from off thy Northwest
Throne,
Interpreted, with will and arm of stone,
That grand old page, where Heaven's
guided pen
Had said, "Born free, and equal are
all men;"
Ohio, may thy "Jewels" number
rise
To guard thy name a thousand centuries.
Caldwell, Ohio, February 4, 1903.