Legendary Lights

O, THE LEGENDARY light,

Gleaming goldenly in night

Like the stars above,

Beautiful, like lights in dream,

Eight, the taper-flames that stream

All one glory and one love.

In our Temple, magical—

Memories, now tragical—

Holy hero-hearts aflame

With a glory more than fame;

There where a shrine is every sod,

Every grave, God’s golden ore,

With a pæan whose rhyme to God,

Lit these lamps of yore.

Lights, you are a living dream,

Faith and bravery you beam,

Youth and dawn and May.

Would your beam were more than dream,

Would the light and love you stream,

Stirred us, spurred us, aye!

Fabled memories of flame,

Till the beast in man we tame,

Tyrants bow to truth, amain,

Brands and bullets yield to brain,

Guns to God, and shells to soul,

Hounds to heart resign the rôle,

Pillared lights of liberty,

In your fairy flames, we’ll see

Faith’s and freedom’s Phœnix-might,

The Omnipotence of Right.