Classic Poem

I. — I N Time OF V ICTORY

A S soldiers after fight confess
The fear their valor would not own
When, ere the battle's thunder stress,
The silence made its mightier moan:

Though now the victory be mine,
'T is of the conflict I must speak,
Still wondering how the Hand Divine
Confounds the mighty with the weak.

To-morrow I may flaunt the foe —
Not now; for in the echoing beat
Of fleeing heart-throbs well I know
The bitterness of near defeat.

O friends! who see but steadfast deeds,
Have grace of pity with your praise.
Crown if you must, but crown with weeds, —
The conquered more deserve your bays.

No, praise the dead! — the ancestral roll
That down their line new courage send,
For moments when against the soul
All hell and half of heaven contend.

II. — I N Time OF D EFEAT

Y ES , here is undisguised defeat —
You say, " No further fight to lose. "
With colors in the dust, 't is meet
That tears should flow and looks accuse.

I echo every word of ruth
Or blame: yet have I lost the right
To praise with you the unfaltering Truth,
Whose power — save in me — has might?

Another day, another man:
I am not now what I have been;
Each grain that through the hour-glass ran
Rescued the sinner from his sin.

The Future is my constant friend;
Above all children born to her
Alike her rich affections bend —
She, the unchiding comforter.

Perhaps on her unsullied scroll
(Who knows?) there may be writ at last
A fairer record of the soul
For this dark blot upon the Past.