Ah more, infinitely more; (As George Fox rais’d his warning cry, “Is it this pile of brick and mortar, these dead floors, windows, rails, you call the church? Why this is not the church at all⁠—the church is living, ever living souls.”)

And you America, Cast you the real reckoning for your present? The lights and shadows of your future, good or evil? To girlhood, boyhood look, the teacher and the school.

Wandering at morn, Emerging from the night from gloomy thoughts, thee in my thoughts, Yearning for thee harmonious Union! thee, singing bird divine! Thee coil’d in evil times my country, with craft and black dismay, with every meanness, treason thrust upon thee, This common marvel I beheld⁠—the parent thrush I watch’d feeding its young, The singing thrush whose tones of joy and faith ecstatic, Fail not to certify and cheer my soul.

There ponder’d, felt I, If worms, snakes, loathsome grubs, may to sweet spiritual songs be turn’d, If vermin so transposed, so used and bless’d may be, Then may I trust in you, your fortunes, days, my country; Who knows but these may be the lessons fit for you? From these your future song may rise with joyous trills, Destin’d to fill the world.