Classic Poem

Once — in the day of our meridian song
And young armadas — on your Bohemian hill
An older fame suffered an alien wrong
Where arms again blasphemed a people's will.
And freedom slept among your heroes then,
Sepulchred on White Mountain, till a theme
Of the unforgotten music called again,
And sovranty was where had been a dream.

Fortune, for all our wisdom, we can shape not,
Being free, we yet are kinsmen of the blind,
The snares of our own hearts we can escape not,
Our bravest end is fortitude of mind —
But Masaryk knows, Bohemia knows, that thence
The spirit of man walks in magnificence.

THE PASSING OF HIS BODY

Whoever sinned in this, it was not he,
While warriors of the tongue defiled our name,
His was no casual service, nor shall be
A casual fame.

To-day let all philosophies be dumb.
And every ardour pause a moment thus,
To say of him, who back from death has come, —
" He died for us. "

Not lonely, though unnamed. Battalioned deep
With you are ghostly multitudes, who tell
Nothing, nor claim. Together to your sleep
Pass, and farewell.