Sol 5.6

  1. This precious testament of yours has never ceased

    to shimmer like radiance amid rain-laden clouds,

  2. inspiring the free amid black storms,

    amid calamities and thunderbolts.

  3. It remains preserved upon the sea of ether,

    though it descended to us from a lofty height,

  4. flowing upon its waves in its course,

    through all the ages like advancing legions.

  5. Though it was fashioned in a few brief minutes,

    before us it rose in moral grandeur, as lofty as its maker.

  6. It mocked events until it struck dumb

    the arrogant boaster and made an end of the fool.

  7. Ninety years, or nearly so, have passed

    since you uttered it like the wisest of speakers.

  8. As though it were the judgment of the ages, it still

    resounds for enemies of ours and friends.

  9. In every word there is a sting and burning—

    woe upon obstinate, crushing tyranny!

  10. The dead have known no life like this:

    treasured, it shone from among the noblest truths.

  11. And the living clung, when they clung,

    passionately to it—their dearest faithful dream.

  12. The graves stirred in reverence,

    at autumn’s hand, through enthralling eloquence—

  13. not from dust-driving winds around them,

    nor from bitter memories and calamities.

  14. If the dead may boast, then those whom you made hear

    what you said have lived with the pride of the foremost.

  15. They reclined upon the thrones of time like emperors,

    redolent with the fragrant speech.

  16. As though they were Christ’s apostles, bearing his sermon,

    free upon the proud and lofty hill.

  17. Exult, beloved Gettysburg, in what

    your sky attained after your loving soil.

  18. For both heard the call and preserved it,

    in spirit and body, in echo and in character—

  19. the heritage of a people whose land has ever been the home of glory,

    a refuge for the free and a shelter for the wayfarer.

  20. Its civilization attained the utmost summit

    one might hope for, never disappointing a confident aspiration.

  21. It harmed him not that despotism was threatened,

    nor that fools menaced him in an angry rage.

  22. How vast the gulf between the usurpers, whose watchword is

    the shedding of blood and a hypocrite’s vacillations,

  23. and the pioneering reformers, whose watchword is

    ideals fluttering like a wind-whipped flag.

Sol 5.6