OCR Text |
Show THE EMPIRE BUILDER. (By John Jerome Rooney. 1. This is the song of the Empire Builder, Who, out of the ends of the earth. Thro' travail of war and of carnage Brings strange, new realms to birth. This :'s the boast of the Empire Builder: Give heed to the deeds of his hands And scorn thou not the glory he hath In his sold and his wasted lands. He hath counted his neighbors cattle Witn the cold, gray eye of greed; He hath marked for his own the fields of wheat Where he never had sown the seed. ' The vine-clad cot by the hillside, j Where the farmer's children play j "This shall fit in my plan." he said; 1 "What use for such as they?" And so. in the dusk of the evening, He brought his armed men, And where had shone the clustering grapes There stretched a waste again. Homeless, the children wandered Thro" the fields their fathers won; No more shall they feel his clasp and never beneath the sun. Vex. vex not the Empire Builder, Nor babble of Mercy's schieUI; Hath he. not his vaster issue -The linking: of field to field? Hath he not noted the boundary That lies .'twixt "mine and thine?" Hath he not said, " 'Twere better for If thine henceforth be mine?" And sn doth the Emnire Builder. ' I From out of the ends of the earth. Thro' travail of war and of carnage Bring strange, new realms to birth-Realms birth-Realms builded on broken hearthstones. The triumphs of Rapine's hour-Thai hour-Thai one mav boast in the hells of Fame And sit in the seats of Power! IT This is the song of the Empire Builder, Who built not of wasted lands. But who builded a kingdom of golden deeds And of things not made by hands! The fields of the spirit were his to roam. The j aths where the Inve-flowers grew: He felt the breath of the spirits' spring In every wind that Mew; It came not laden with dyins groans And homeless orphans' cries: It blew from the mountains of the Lord And the fields of Paradise. This is the hoast of the Empire, Builder Who built not of mouldering clay; That the kinEdr-m he built, not made by hands. , Shall never pass away! The mind cannot measure its boundaries. All s-pace is it? outer gate; It is broader than ever a man conceived And more durable than Fate. Its streets are paved with deeds of love The soul's untarnished gold-It gold-It is fairer than eye of man hath seen Or tongue of man hath told. This is the empire our brother built, Tn h's lill'.c hour of Earth. Thro' the spirit's travail of righteous deeds And 'he spirit's glad rebirth. I He hath silenced the boast of the Empire I Builder. With his trold and wasted lands. By his deathless kingdom of golden deeds And of things not made by hands. This is the kinpdom our brother built: It is good: it hath sufficed For who can measure the glory he keeps With our Elder Brother, Christ? |