A Canticle: Significant of the national exaltation of enthusiasm at the close of the War.

O the precipice Titanic Of the congregated Fall, And the angle oceanic Where the deepening thunders call - And the Gorge so grim, And the firmamental rim! Multitudinously thronging The waters all converge, Then they sweep adown in sloping Solidity of surge. The Nation, in her impulse Mysterious as the Tide, In emotion like an ocean Moves in power, not in pride; And is deep in her devotion As Humanity is wide. Thou Lord of hosts victorious, The confluence Thou hast twined; By a wondrous way and glorious A passage Thou dost find - A passage Thou dost find: Hosanna to the Lord of hosts, The hosts of human kind. Stable in its baselessness When calm is in the air, The Iris half in tracelessness Hovers faintly fair. Fitfully assailing it A wind from heaven blows, Shivering and paling it To blankness of the snows; While, incessant in renewal, The Arch rekindled grows, Till again the gem and jewel Whirl in blinding overthrows - Till, prevailing and transcending, Lo, the Glory perfect there, And the contest finds an ending, For repose is in the air. But the foamy Deep unsounded, And the dim and dizzy ledge, And the booming roar rebounded, And the gull that skims the edge! The Giant of the Pool Heaves his forehead white as wool - Toward the Iris every climbing From the Cataracts that call - Irremovable vast arras Draping all the Wall. The Generations pouring From times of endless date, In their going, in their flowing Ever form the steadfast State; And Humanity is growing Toward the fullness of her fate. Thou Lord of hosts victorious, Fulfill the end designed; By a wondrous way and glorious A passage Thou dost find - A passage Thou dost find: Hosanna to the Lord of hosts, The hosts of human kind.