The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864, page 199 by Various Authors
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still young as when she woke in Paradise, and, seeing the End, is not yet weary with her long journey of Exile. Brighter gates than those of Eden stand unbarred before her! In her right hand she holds unrolled, that all may read, the great Magna Charta of universal Human Rights, and even at this distance we may see EMANCIPATION upon its broad margin. We know the once sad spirit now, no longer sad, the radiant Genius of Humanity.
Her vigorous arm is round a younger and less solemn form, a form of wildering beauty, whose gold hair glitters like a nimbus in the level rays of morning; with an irresistible impulse we take her into the innermost folds of our hearts, we feel her to be our own; our banner in her right hand sways and tosses on the fresh breeze, its stars, round which new suns are ever clustering, throw their dazzling light upon her, and the young eagles turning from the sun throng around her to drink the splendor from her brighter brow. The long streamers from her girdle float athwart the sky, their wavy lines, red, white, and blue, quiver with delight as the wild zephyrs caress them, thrilling the air with shifting play of passionate color. Ha! what miracle is this?--whatsoever light may fall upon them, under what angle soever we may see them, as were it magically woven into their warp and woof, we read the word now graven on our hearts--UNION! Her left hand holds closely clasped to her heart a great urn, glowing as it were an immense ruby--ah! we need no words to tell us what the young spirit clasps so fondly to her breast--we feel it is the dust of the holy dead, who gave their lives on the red battle field that she might live: their very ashes glow with living fire! Her white feet rest on the sacred graves of Shiloh, Antietam, Murfreesboro', Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Lookout Mountain, the Wilderness, Atlanta, Winchester, and Cedar Creek, from which she has newly risen in her young strength and ever-growing glory.
She is the brilliant Spirit of our Nation