A Nation's Strength
About The Author William Ralph Emerson, born in 1833, was an architect and the second cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He worked to design several of the first buildings for the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. He died in Milton, Massachusetts, in 1917. William Ralph Emerson's poem "A Nation's Strength" is a powerful and inspirational work that explores the values and qualities essential for building and sustaining a great nation. The poem rejects material wealth, military power, and pride as the foundations of national strength, instead emphasizing the moral and ethical character of its people. Poem What makes a nation's pillars high And its foundations strong? What makes it mighty to defy The foes that round it throng? It is not gold. Its kingdoms grand Go down in battle shock; Its shafts are laid on sinking sand, Not on abiding rock. Is it the sword? Ask the red dust Of empires passed away; The blood has turned their stones to rust, Their glory to decay. And is ...