Read "The Little Builders" by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Ye are builders, little builders, / Not with mortar, brick and stone, / But your work is far more glorious -- / Ye are building freedom's throne.
Where the ocean never slumbers / Works the coral 'neath the spray, / By and by a reef or island / Rears its head to greet the day.
Then the balmy rains and sunshine / Scatter treasures o'er the soil, / 'Till a place for human footprints, / Crown the little builder's toil.
When the stately ships sweep o'er them, / Cresting all the sea with foam, / Little think these patient toilers, / They are building man a home.
Do you ask me, precious children, / How your little hands can build, / That you love the name of freedom, / But your fingers are unskilled?
Not on thrones or in proud temples, / Does fair freedom seek her rest; / No, her chosen habitations, / Are the hearts that love her best.
Would you gain the highest freedom?
Live for God and man alone, / Then each heart in freedom's temple, / Will be like a living stone.
Fill your minds with useful knowledge, / Learn to love the true and right; / Thus you'll build the throne of freedom, / On a pedestal of light.