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(Died March 14, 1901)
FULL on his forehead fell the expiring light | |
| Of old wreathed altars where his fathers died, | |
| While at his back the dull devouring night | |
| Poured its advancing tide. | |
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| He would the ancient light relume, would fain | 5 |
| The dear old faith keep still without a blot, | |
| The flag he fought for scathless of a stain, | |
| The shield without a spot. | |
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| He sided with the weak and ceaseless strove | |
| With failing hands against the tyrannous strong; | 10 |
| Here was no place for him where unarmed Love | |
| Is strangled by old Wrong. | |
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| Here was no place for him where Force and Greed | |
| Upon the sacred fillets lay their hands | |
| Red from the spoil of stricken souls that bleed | 15 |
| And wrecks of ruined lands. | |
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| He has won peace at last—the peace that knows | |
| In dreamless tides no hint of hate or tears, | |
| And falls where once his dauntless voice arose | |
| The silence of the years. | 20 |
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| And men walk by and gaze, and wondering ask, | |
| Now that the white clear-visioned soul is fled, | |
| Where is the hand to seize the torch and task | |
| New fallen from the dead? | |
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| Was all in vain? Is any word of worth, | 25 |
| Though winged with truth and shot home to the mark, | |
| If all the answer is this silent earth | |
| All lost voice in the dark? | |
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| But lost is never living word nor deed. | |
| As toward great waves unseen the ripple flows, | 30 |
| As hour by hour, unguessed, the fervent seed | |
| Up to the sunlight grows, | |
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| The true man’s word, though sown in fallow soil | |
| And fruitless lying many a day and night, | |
| In its own way, beyond the sower’s toil, | 35 |
| Bursts into deathless light. | |
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