THE TRIUMPH OF LIBERTY.
1788-1888.
WRITTEN FOR THE MARIETTA
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
BY R. K. SHAW.
We meet this splendid April morn
Where EQUAL LIBERTY was born.
We meet to celebrate the birth
Of her whose hand redeems the earth.
This day in joy and pride we meet
To worship at triumphal feet.
Her age this day-a hundred years,
As measured by the rolling spheres,
As measured by her works sublime
She grandly runs abreast of time.
Here FREEDOM built her perfect arch
Through which her faithful legions
march,
Here wisely formed her model State,
Here reared her inner temple-gate,
And on its stainless pillars white
Her deft and matchless fingers write
" The human race are EQUAL-FREE;
" Mankind are born to
liberty."
0, matchless boon of human years,
We celebrate thy pioneers.
We meet within that temple-gate
Where human slavery met its fate.
Here conscience trembles not in fear,
And woman walks the earth a peer.
Each plants his fig tree and his vine,
And says, "A part of earth is mine;
" I own the land that's great-and
free;
" I worship God in liberty."
To lands untrodden by the slave
Earth's heroes came, the strong, the
brave,
Who freedom's race had nobly run
When marching with a Washington.
They bought these hills at costly price-
They tendered life a sacrifice;
Their manhood's strength, their
manhood's year
They spent in war, in blood and tears;
They grandly grew to freedom's height
216
The Triumph of Liberty. 217
In freedom's struggle for the right.
Their works stand out in bold relief,
All others lean upon their sheat.
The Mayflower on Atlantic's sea
Brought base alloy with liberty;
The Mayflower on Ohio's breast
Brought FREEDOM PURE unto the West.
Glorious day-glorious birth-
While human hands shall till the earth.
The freedom flag that they unfurled
Shall float in triumph o'er the world.
Our freedom made New England free,
Led Middle States to liberty.
More glorious than all the rest,
Made sunny South free as the West.
That banner crosses o'er the waves,
And lo! it breaks the chains of slaves;
'Tis planted on the old world's turf,
And Russia frees her Cossac serf;
It floats above the soil of Spain
And rends her bondsmen's links in twain.
And marching on in triumph still
It carries freedom to Brazil.
For human slavery can not be
Where floats that flag of liberty.
It bears aloft upon its folds
The thought that earth's redemption
holds,
"The human race are EQUAL-FREE;
"Mankind are born to LIBERTY."
The little spring that sparkled here
In billows washes o'er the sphere.
All men shall celebrate the day
When FREEDOM
here her altar lay,
As we to-day here celebrate
Her pioneers-her model State.
Wise men, they left the cultured East,
Fought savage men and savage beast
Within the western wilderness,
And made it bloom with loveliness.
Grand was the thought their purpose led.
Magnificent its growth and spread;
For human records give no age
That bears a brighter, purer page.
218 Ohio Archaeological
and Historical Quarterly.
To all the people gave the helm
And launched their state " The
Freedom Realm."
Its keel and ribs are grand-are great-
"All the people are the State,
And of and by them government,
And for them, all its blessings
sent."
And say what shall its limits be,
And what Our Freedom's boundary?
The narrow breadth of fifty States
Already in, or at the gates?
Nay more, far more than all of these,
Our country's limits shall be seas;
Columbia, on every side
Thou shalt be washed by ocean's tide.
Nor then is Freedom's measure full,
In other lands shall PEOPLE rule;
And when all men in every land,
On human rights, in freedom stand,
Shall FREEDOM in her grandest years
Plant laurels o'er her pioneers.