| |
| OUR many years are made of clay and cloud, | |
| And quick desire is but as morning dew; | |
| And love and life, that linger and are proud, | |
| Dissolve and are again the arching blue. | |
| |
| For who shall answer what the ages ask? | 5 |
| Or who undo a one-day-earlier bud? | |
| We are but atoms in the larger task | |
| Of law that seeks not to be understood. | |
| |
| Shall we then gather to our meagre mien | |
| The purple of power, and sit above the seed, | 10 |
| While still abroad the acres of the green | |
| Invisible feet leave imprint of their speed? | |
| |
| We are but part; the whole within the part | |
| Trembles, as heaven steadied in a stream. | |
| Not ours to question whence the leafage start, | 15 |
| Or doubt the prescience of a people’s dream. | |
| |
| For these are cradled in the dark of time, | |
| And move in larger order than we know; | |
| The isolate act interpreted a crime, | |
| In perfect circle, shows the Mind below. | 20 |
| |
| Forth from the hush of equatorial heat | |
| The wiser mother drove her sable kin— | |
| Was it that through our vitiated wheat | |
| A lustier grain should swell the life, grown thin? | |
| |
| Was it that upward through a waste of blood | 25 |
| The brutal tribe should struggle to a soul,— | |
| That white and black, in interchange of good, | |
| Might grope through ages to a loftier whole? | |
| |
| Who knows, who knows? For while we mock with doubt | |
| The ceaseless loom thrids through its slow design; | 30 |
| The waning artifice is woven out, | |
| And simple manhood rears a nobler line. | |
| |
| Then wherefore clamor to your idols thus | |
| For bands to hold the Nation from its growth, | |
| And wax in terror at the overplus | 35 |
| Won from dishonor and imperial sloth? | |
| |
| Wherefore implore the Power that lifts our might | |
| To punish what His providence ordains; | |
| To fix our star forever in its night; | |
| To hold us fettered in our ancient chains? | 40 |
| |
| The Nation in God’s garden swells to fruit, | |
| And He is glad, and blesses. Shall we then | |
| Shrink inward to the dulness of the root, | |
| And vanish from the onward march of men? | |
| |
| Give up the lands we won in loyal war; | 45 |
| Give up the gain and glory, rule, renown, | |
| The orient commerce of the open door, | |
| The conquest, and the wide imperial crown? | |
| |
| Yea, were these all, ’t were well to let them go; | |
| For idle gold is but an empty gain: | 50 |
| An empire, reared on ashes of its foe, | |
| Falls, as have fallen the island-walls of Spain. | |
| |
| Treasure is dust. They need it not who build | |
| On better things. Our gain is in the loss: | |
| In love and tears, self victories fulfilled, | 55 |
| In manhood bending to the bitter cross. | |
| |
| In burdens that make wise the bearer, wounds | |
| Taken in hate that sanctify the heart, | |
| In sympathies and sorrows, and in sounds | |
| That up from all the open waters start; | 60 |
| |
| In brotherhood that binds the broken ties | |
| And clasps the whole world closer into peace; | |
| In East and West enwoven loverwise, | |
| Mated for happy arts and home’s increase. | |
| |
| What though the sere leaf circle to the ground,— | 65 |
| Its summer task is done, the bough is clean | |
| For Spring’s ascent; the lost is later found | |
| In some new recess of the risen green. | |
| |
| We are but Nature’s menials. ’T is her might | |
| Sets our strange feet on Australasian sands, | 70 |
| Bids us to pluck the races from their night | |
| And build a State from out the brawling bands. | |
| |
| Serene, she sweeps aside the more or less, | |
| The man or people, if her end be sure; | |
| Her brooding eyes, that ever bend to bless, | 75 |
| Find guerdon for the dead that shall endure. | |
| |
| Truth marches on, though crafty ignorance | |
| Heed not the footfall of the eternal tread. | |
| The land that shrinks from Nature’s armed advance | |
| Shall lie dishonored with her wasted dead. | 80 |
| |
| Yea, it behooves us that the light be free. | |
| We are but bearers,—it is Nature’s own,— | |
| Runners who speed the way of Destiny, | |
| Yielding the torch whose flame is forward blown. | |
| |
| We are in His wide grasp who holds the law, | 85 |
| Who heaves the tidal sea, and rounds the year; | |
| We may return not, though the weak withdraw; | |
| We must move onward to the last frontier. | |
| |
