Freedom In Brazil

With clearer light, Cross of the South, shine forth     In blue Brazilian skies;     And thou, O river, cleaving half the earth     From sunset to sunrise,     From the great mountains to the Atlantic waves     Thy joy's long anthem pour.     Yet a few years (God make them less!) and slaves     Shall shame thy pride no more,     No fettereel feet thy shaded margins press;     But all men shall walk free     Where thou, the high-priest of the wilderness,     Hast wedded sea to sea.     And thou, great-hearted ruler, through whose mouth     The word of God is said,     Once more, "Let there be light!" Son of the South,     Lift up thy honored head,     Wear unashamed a crown by thy desert     More than by birth thy own,     Careless of watch and ward; thou art begirt     By grateful hearts alone.     The moaned wall and battle-ship may fail,     But safe shall justice prove;     Stronger than greaves of brass or iron mail     The panoply of love.     Crowned doubly by man's blessing and God's grace,     Thy future is secure;     Who frees a people makes his statue's place     In Time's Valhalla sure.     Lo! from his Neva's banks the Scythian Czar     Stretches to thee his hand,     Who, with the pencil of the Northern star,     Wrote freedom on his land.     And he whose grave is holy by our calm     And prairied Sangamon,     From his gaunt hand shall drop the martyr's palm     To greet thee with "Well done!"     And thou, O Earth, with smiles thy face make sweet,     And let thy wail be stilled,     To hear the Muse of prophecy repeat     Her promise half fulfilled.     The Voice that spake at Nazareth speaks still,     No sound thereof hath died;     Alike thy hope and Heaven's eternal will     Shall yet be satisfied.     The years are slow, the vision tarrieth long,     And far the end may be;     But, one by one, the fiends of ancient wrong     Go out and leave thee free