own,
  Heard from the van of freedom’s hope forlorn! 
  It had been safer, doubtless, for the time,
  To flatter treason, and avoid offence
  To that Dark Power whose underlying crime
  Heaves upward its perpetual turbulence. 
  But, if thine be the fate of all who break
  The ground for truth’s seed, or forerun their years
  Till lost in distance, or with stout hearts make
  A lane for freedom through the level spears,
  Still take thou courage!  God has spoken through thee,
  Irrevocable, the mighty words, Be free! 
  The land shakes with them, and the slave’s dull ear
  Turns from the rice-swamp stealthily to hear. 
  Who would recall them now must first arrest
  The winds that blow down from the free North-west,
  Ruffling the Gulf; or like a scroll roll back
  The Mississippi to its upper springs. 
  Such words fulfil their prophecy, and lack
  But the full time to harden into things.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

* * * * *

HEROES.

  The winds that once the Argo bore
    Have died by Neptune’s ruined shrines,
  And her hull is the drift of the deep-sea floor,
    Though shaped of Pelion’s tallest pines. 
  You may seek her crew on every isle
    Fair in the foam of AEgean seas,
  But out of their rest no charm can wile
    Jason and Orpheus and Hercules.

  And Priam’s wail is heard no more
    By windy Ilion’s sea-built walls;
  Nor great Achilles, stained with gore,
    Shouts “O ye gods, ’tis Hector falls!”
  On Ida’s mount is the shining snow,
    But Jove has gone from its brow away;
  And red on the plain the poppies grow
    Where the Greek and the Trojan fought that day.

  Mother Earth, are the heroes dead? 
    Do they thrill the soul of the years no more? 
  Are the gleaming snows and the poppies red
    All that is left of the brave of yore? 
  Are there none to fight as Theseus fought,
    Far in the young world’s misty dawn? 
  Or teach as gray-haired Nestor taught? 
    Mother Earth, are the heroes gone?

  Gone?  In a grander form they rise. 
    Dead?  We may clasp their hands in ours,
  And catch the light of their clearer eyes,
    And wreathe their brows with immortal flowers. 
  Wherever a noble deed is done,
    ’Tis the pulse of a hero’s heart is stirred;
  Wherever Right has a triumph won,
    There are the heroes’ voices heard. 
  Their armor rings on a fairer field
    Than the Greek and the Trojan fiercely trod;
  For Freedom’s sword is the blade they wield,
    And the gleam above is the smile of God. 
  So, in his isle of calm delight,
    Jason may sleep the years away;
  For the heroes live, and the sky is bright,
    And the world is a braver world to-day.