While we wait for their passing tread.
We sons of to-day, we salute you,
You, sons of an earlier day,
We follow, close order, behind you,
Where you have pointed the way;
The long gray line of us stretches
Thro’ the years of a century told,
And the last man feels to his marrow
The grip of your far-off hold.
Grip hands with us now though we see not,