faith sublime,
          Till the wise years decide. 190
      Great captains, with their guns and drums,
        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, 195
        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 200
        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; 205
      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, 210
      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, 215
      A virtue round whose forehead we enwreathe
      Laurels that with a living passion breathe
    When other crowns are cold and soon grow sere. 
      What brings us thronging these high rites to pay,
    And seal these hours the noblest of our year, 220
      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. 225
      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, 230
          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, 235
    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