MAN OF TODAY
For thee he thought,
The Greek, who by the sea
Lay in his lithe-limbed grace, as dreamily
He gazed upon the sky begemmed with stars,
And pondered mysteries. Ah, few the bars
To stop that lofty spirit in its flight
Compared with those that lock our souls in night.
For thee he thought!
For thee he wrought,
The Tyrian, who of old
His rich web wove of purple dye and gold;
Whose little bark, outstanding many a storm,
To ruder lands the spirit and the form
Of Eastern culture bore. Ah! what we owe
To him today, let sage and poet show.
For thee he wrought!
For thee he fought!
The Saxon, who upheld
The freedom of our race; whose broad-ax felled
Imperial legions in the forest dim
Where loud his war-cry rang—a noble hymn
For manhood's victory over regal pride,
On the sad day when mighty Varus died.
For thee he fought!
For thee He taught!
The Nazarene who bore
The burden of the world, who by the shore
Of Galilee His words of wisdom spake
Whose life a pattern for our life we'd take,
Whose words, re-echoing to remotest time,
Shall lead us on toward a height sublime.
For thee He taught!
Man—man! thou heir of all the ages, thou,
Man of today! uplift thy drooping brow!
Think, work, fight, teach—thine heritage pass on
Tenfold increased. He'll reap who has foregone
Life's little, limited delights,—in measure
As selfless he has sown his earthly treasure.
THE FADING VISION
The vision fades—dome, pinnacle and tower,
All the white beauty of the lake-side dream,
The artist's ideal, the poet's theme
Vanish away. Yet for no fleeting hour
Was this proud fabric raised. The crumbling wall
Entombs not memory's treasure, and we hold
This truth dear as the miser his loved gold,
Dome, pinnacle and tower cannot fall.
No marvel this, that memory holds fast
Such beauty, passing beauty seen before,
The grace and charm of every clime and shore,
Strength of today, the glories of the past,
All met in one great whole—for not alone
Man's hand the wonder wrought, but soaring high
His spirit, like the bird that cleaves the sky,
Knew naught of obstacle from zone to zone.
Deathless his work. Age shall repeat to age
The story of the city by the Lake.
And as the waves that on the near sands break
Reach far-off shores, so on the pictured page
Throughout remotest time, serene in pride,
Wearing her crown of glory, shall be seen
Stately and fair, Chicago, Western queen,
With all the Nations gathered at her side.
Gladly they met, each teaching and each taught,
Light-skinned or dark-skinned from the West or East.
Peoples unlike, as at a loving feast,
Distant no more, united in a thought.
Columbia! this thy lesson, learn it well—
The comity of Nations; this the plan
Of God from time's first dawn, that man with man,
Bound in one brotherhood in peace should dwell.
Great Voyager, whose caravels outsped
Man's swiftest fancy in those earlier days!
If, looking far beyond the curving bays
Of this new world thy glowing spirit read
That here there stretched a mighty continent
Where a sure haven for mankind should be,
Small didst thou count thy peril on the sea,
Well knowing what thy sufferings had meant.
For it was thine to turn toward the West
The worn old-world, and westward as the star
Of Power moves, nor tyranny nor war
Its fires sustains—it shines for the oppressed.
The vision fades—dome, pinnacle and tower—
Yet fades not like the substance of a dream—
Nation to Nation, State to State shall seem
Drawn to each other closer through its power.
1893