Down which they stumble to eternal mock : No chafferer's hand shall long the sceptre hold, Who, given a Fate to shape, would sell the block.

"We sing old Sagas, songs of weal and woe, Mystic because too cheaply understood; Dark sayings are not ours; men hear and know,

See Evil weak, see strength alone in Good,
Yet hope to stem God's fire with walls of tow.

"Time Was unlocks the riddle of Time Is,
That offers choice of glory or of gloom;
The solver makes Time Shall Be surely his.
But hasten, Sisters! for even now the tomb
Grates its slow hinge and calls from the abyss."

“But not for him," I cried, "not yet for him,
Whose large horizon, westering, star by star
Wins from the void to where on Ocean's rim
The sunset shuts the world with golden bar,
Not yet his thews shall fail, his eye grow dim!

"His shall be larger manhood, saved for those That walk unblenching through the trial-fires; Not suffering, but faint heart, is worst of woes,

And he no base-born son of craven sires, need blench confronted with his

Whose eye foes.

Tears may be ours, but proud, for those who win

Death's royal purple in the foeman's lines; Peace, too, brings tears; and mid the battledin,

The wiser ear some text of God divines,

For the sheathed blade may rust with darker sin.

"God, give us peace! not such as lulls to sleep, But sword on thigh, and brow with purpose knit !

And let our Ship of State to harbor sweep,
Her ports all up, her battle-lanterns lit,
And her leashed thunders gathering for their
leap!"

So cried I with clenched hands and passionate pain,

Thinking of dear ones by Potomac's side; Again the loon laughed mocking, and again The echoes bayed far down the night and died, While waking I recalled my wandering brain.