Demagogue nor Demigod
Shall again control the World;
Man awoke! disdained the rod,
Spurned the despot whip and prod,
To the dust his rider hurled.
Man has come unto his own;
Broken are his bands and bars;
Faith’s futurity foreknown
Domes a sky of promise sown
Thick with happy-omened stars.
Zealous, not iconoclast,
We would spare the ancient true;
Life in death is rooted fast;
And the fruitage of the Past
Is the Passing,—is the New.
Azure blood and haughty crest,
Blazon of heraldic scroll,
Coin in coffer, star on breast,—
These are good, but better, best,
Is the rank, the wealth, of soul.
Earth grows better growing old,
Still by happier races trod;
Plato’s iron men are gold;
Large humanities unfold;
Evolution’s law is—God.
We the People, We the State,
Subject, Sovereign, both in one,
Trust in Highest Potentate.
Trust, O World, in Us and wait.
God has willed our will be done.
EIGHTY-SEVEN.
AS a mighty heart in a giant’s breast
With rhythmic beat
Sends marching from brain to feet
The crimson vigor of creative blood,
So, in the bosom of the brawny West,
So, in the stalwart breast of the Nation,
Throbs the Great Ordinance,—a heart,
A vital and organic part,
Propelling by its strong pulsation
The unremitting stream and flood
Of wholesome influences that give
Unto the body politic
The elements and virtues quick
Whereby Republics live.
THE FOUNDERS OF OHIO.
APRIL, 1888.
THE footsteps of a hundred years
Have echoed, since o’er Braddock’s Road
Bold Putnam and the Pioneers
Led History the way they strode.