Our dead forefathers, mighty though they be,
For all their power still leave our spirits free;
Though on our paths their shadows far are thrown,
The life that each man liveth is his own.
Time stands like some schoolmaster old and stern,
And calls each human being in his turn
To write his task upon life’s blackboard space;
Death’s fingers then the finished work erase,
And the next pupil’s letters take its place.
That he who wrote before thee labored well
Concerns thee not: thy work for thee must tell;
’Tis naught to thee if others’ tasks were ill:
Thou hast thy chance and canst improve it still.
From all thy fathers’ glory and their guilt
The board for thee is clean: write what thou wilt!
THE WOOD FIRE
O giant oak, majestic, dark, and old,
A hundred summers in the woodland vast,
From the rich suns that lit thy glories past,
In thy huge trunk thou storedst warmth untold;
Now, when the drifted snows the hills enfold,
And the wild woods are shaken in the blast,
O’er this bright hearth thou sendest out at last
The long-pent sunshine that thine heart did hold.
Like thee, O noble oak-tree, I would store
From days of joy all beauty and delight,
All radiant warmth that makes life’s summer bright,
So that I may, when sunniest hours are o’er,
Still from my heart their treasured gleam outpour,
To cheer some spirit in its winter night.
A NEW YEAR’S HOPE
I dare not hope that in this dawning year
I shall accomplish all my dreams hold dear;
That I, when this year closes, shall have wrought
All the high tasks that my ambitions sought,
And that I shall be then the spirit free,
Strong, and unselfish, that I long to be.
But truly do I hope, resolve, and pray
That, as the new year passes, day by day
My footsteps, howsoever short and slow,
Shall still press forward in the path they go,
And that my eyes, uplifted evermore,
Shall look forth dauntless to the things before;
And when this new year with the old has gone,
I still may courage have to struggle on.