 | Jones Very : The Complete Poems |  |
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“It is vain to say, that this is the country of the ‘white man.’ It is the country of man.” Charles Sumner.
True, noble words, which thrill the very soul,—This country is for man, the human race;
Words, too, that should our policy control,
If we would not our fatherland disgrace.
This country is for all, of every name,
Reserved by Providence' all-gracious plan,
That each his proper dignity might claim,—
The right to be, and feel himself a man.
Here may the oppressed of foreign nations come,
And find, in our wide country, peace and rest;
The roving Indian reach a settled home,
In the broad prairies of the fertile West;
And here the slave, to manhood born at last,
Forget the wrongs and miseries of the past.
Poem No. 744; c. November 1865
| Jones Very : The Complete Poems | |