Forefathers’ Day.

Helen Hunt Jackson.

Find me the men on earth who care

Enough for faith or creed to-day

To seek a barren wilderness

For simple liberty to pray.

Despise their narrow creed who will;

Pity their poverty who dare:

Their lives knew joys, their lives wore crowns,

We do not know, we cannot wear.

And if so be that it is saved,

Our poor Republic, stained and bruised,

’Twill be because we lay again

Their corner-stones which we refused.