Ii

Not to ourselves our strength we brought: Inexpiable the Hand that wrought In us the ruin of no redress,

The storm, the effort, the pang, the fire, The premonition, the vast desire, The primal passion of righteousness!

Scarce by the pitiful thwarted plan, The haste, or the studious fears of man Drawing a discord from best delight,

The measure is meted of God most wise; Nor the future, with her adjusted eyes, Shall speak us false in our dying fight.

But e’en to me now some use is clear In the builded truth down-beaten here For any along the way to spurn,

Since ever our broken task may stand Disaster’s college in one saved land, Whence many a stripling state shall learn.

Out of the human shoots the divine: Be the Republic our only sign, For whose life’s glory our lives have been

Ambassadors on a noble way Tempest-driven, and sent astray The first and the final good between.

Close to the vision undestroyed, The hope not compassed and yet not void, We perish so; but the world shall mark

On the hilltop of our work we died, With joy of the groom before the bride, With a dawn-cry thro’ the battle’s dark.