Anniversary Poem

Anniversary Poem
John Greenleaf Whittier

I knew that truth would crush the lie,
Somehow, sometime the end would be;
Yet scarcely dared I hope to see
The triumph with my mortal eye.

"But now I see it! In the sun
A free flag floats from yonder dome.
And at the nation's hearth and home
The justice long delayed is done.

"Not as we hoped, in calm of prayer.
The message of deliverance comes.
But heralded by roll of drums
On waves of battle-troubled air!

"Not as we hoped - but what are we?

Above our broken dreams and plans

God lays, with wiser hand than man's

The corner-stones of liberty."