Edmund Clarence Stedman (Эдмунд Кларенс Стедман)
Mater Coronata
Recited at the Bicentennial Celebration of Yale University, October 23, 1901I All things on Earth that are accounted great Are dedicate to conflict at first breath; Nature herself knows grandly to await The masterful estate Which from her secret germ Time conjureth, II The elements that buffet man decree His lustihood prevailing to the end; The free air foreordains him to be free;— Their stern persistency The ages to his resolute spirit lend. III So rose our Academe since that far day When reverently the grave forefathers came, In council by the shoal ancestral bay, To speak the word,—to pray,— To found the enduring shrine without a name. IV Ye, at the witchery of whose golden wand New cloisters rise to splendor in a night,— Find here your model! Here the barriers stand That were not made to hand, That have the puissance Time confers aright. V Born with the exit of that iron age When Nova Anglia to New-England grew, Learning's new child put up a hermitage, Whereof no godly mage As from a mount the boundaries foreknew; VI No oracle betokened the obscure Grim years encountering which the elders bowed, Yet knew not faintness nor discomfiture, But set the buttress sure That should upstay these tabernacles proud; VII These fanes, that bred their patriot to vie In steadfastness, erect of thought to live, Or, when the country bade, undauntedly Without lament to die Save that he had but one young life to give. VIII Twice, thrice, and yet again, that sovereign call Rang not in vain; nor from this ancient grove Hath ceased to broaden, as the days befall, The famed processional Of the mind's workmen who to greatness move. IX No feebling she that reared them, no forlorn And wrinkled mother lingering in the gray; Fadeless she smiles to see her shield upborne: It is her morn, her morn! The past, but twilight ushering in her day. X Strong Mother! thou who from the doorways old, Or housed anew in beauty renovate, Hast spread thine heritage a hundred-fold,— Hast wrought us to thy mould Whether the bread of ease or toil we ate; XI Thou who hast made thy sons coequal all, The least one of thy progeny a peer Wearing for worth not birth his coronal,— The watchmen on thy wall Wax proud this sundawn of thy cyclic year! XII The lustres of a new-won firmament, Spanned from the height thine upmost turrets crown, Relume the course whereon thy thoughts are bent,— Whereto the words are sent That bid thy children pass the lineage down. XIII Ere yet that rainbowed dome thou seest complete, Mankind, be sure, shall Earth more nobly share; No churl his measure shall unduly mete; And where are set thy feet Life shall be counted lordlier and more fair. XIV Science shall yield new spells for man to know, And bid thee consecrate to mortal weal All that her henchmen in thy gates bestow; Nor lofty then, nor low, Save to his race each ministrant is leal. XV Thine be it still the undying antique speech, The grove's high thought, the wing'd Hellenic lyre, Unvexed of soul thy acolytes to teach,— So shall they also reach Their lamps, and light them at a quenchless fire; XVI And wield the trebly-welded English tongue, Their vantage by inheritance divine, Invincible the laurelled lists among Wherein the bards have sung Or sages deathless made the lettered line; XVII Till now, for that sure Pentecost to come, The globe's four winds are winnowing apace Fresh harvestings of speech, in one to sum A world's curriculum When East and West forgather face to face. XVIII Thus first imbued, thy coming host the clues To broad achievement shall descry the more; What thou hast taught them shall in statecraft use Greatly; nor can they choose But follow where the omens blaze before! XIX Even as our Platonist's exultant soul That westward course of empire visioned far, Now round the sheen, to Asia and the Pole, Time charts upon our scroll The empearlèd pathways of an orient star. XX There the swart Malay's juster league begun Takes from our hands the tables of the law; The mild Hawaiian raises to the sun The folds himself had won Ere the Antilles their deliverance saw. XXI Time's drama speeds: albeit, alas! its chief Protagonist, augmenter of the State, Fell as the Prompter turned that unread leaf,— And oh, what tragic grief Just when consummate towered the action great! XXII To strong brave hands the rule, the large intent, Have passed. Nor tears alone that some far plan Required the master's life-blood interblent— To point his monument And leave once more the likeness of a man. XXIII But we, Yale's living multitude rebrought From farthest outposts of the pine and palm,— We know her battlements of iron wrought, Her captains fearing naught, Her voice of welcome rising like a psalm. XXIV We know the still indissoluble chain Wherewith the sons are to the Mother bound; Nor unto any shall she call in vain Who in her heart have lain And trod the memoried precinct of her ground. XXV God dower her endowering her brood With knowledge, beauty, valor, from her breast,— Ingathering from the peopled town, the wood, The island solitude, The land's most loyal and its manfullest! XXVI God keep her! Yea, that Soul her soul endure,— That Spirit of the interstellar void, That mightier Presence than the fathers knew,— The source of light wherethrough Heaven's planets shine in joy and strength deployed. XXVII That Power,—even that which doth impart a share And semblance of divinity to our kind,— Hold thee, dear Mother, here and everywhere,— Thee and thy sons,—in care, Through centuries yet still loftier use to find!
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