Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait,
    Safe in himself as in a fate,
        So always firmly he: 
        He knew to bide his time,
        And can his fame abide,
Still patient in his simple faith sublime,
        Till the wise years decide. 
  Great captains, with their guns and drums, 201
    Disturb our judgment for the hour,
      But at last silence comes;
  These all are gone, and, standing like a tower. 
  Our children shall behold his fame,
    The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man. 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,
  New birth of our new soil, the first American.

VII

  Long as man’s hope insatiate can discern
    Or only guess some more inspiring goal 210
    Outside of Self, enduring as the pole,
  Along whose course the flying axles burn
  Of spirits bravely pitched, earth’s manlier brood,
    Long as below we cannot find
  The meed that stills the inexorable mind;
  So long this faith to some ideal Good,
  Under whatever mortal names it masks,
  Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal mood
That thanks the Fates for their severer tasks,
  Feeling its challenged pulses leap, 220
  While others skulk in subterfuges cheap,
And, set in Danger’s van, has all the boon it asks,
  Shall win man’s praise and woman’s love,
  Shall be a wisdom that we set above
All other skills and gifts to culture dear,
  A virtue round whose forehead we inwreathe
  Laurels that with a living passion breathe
When other crowns grow, while we twine them, sear. 
  What brings us thronging these high rites to pay,
And seal these hours the noblest of our year, 230
  Save that our brothers found this better way?

VIII

  We sit here in the Promised Land
  That flows with Freedom’s honey and milk;
  But ’twas they won it, sword in hand,
Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk. 
  We welcome back our bravest and our best;—­
  Ah me! not all! some come not with the rest,
Who went forth brave and bright as any here! 
I strive to mix some gladness with my strain,
        But the sad strings complain, 240
        And will not please the ear: 
I sweep them for a paean, but they wane
        Again and yet again
Into a dirge, and die away, in pain. 
In these brave ranks I only see the gaps,
Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps,
Dark to the triumph which they died to gain: 
    Fitlier may others greet the living,
    For me the past is unforgiving;
      I with uncovered head 250
      Salute the sacred dead,
Who went, and who return not.—­Say not so! 
’Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay,
But the high faith that failed not by the way;