Classic Poem

What could he have more than this life has given?—
Deep-breathing health that leaps to see the sun;
Each hope today made history tomorrow;
Joy of hard work and work's accomplishment;
Friends, sheltered home, peace like an autumn dawn;
One woman's love, children of glowing eyes
Skipping beside him in their filial pride;
Music, and art, and books as daily food;
Envied of those who envy no one else;—
And yet one lack:—


That, knowing all the lore
Of heroes—blazing names that he reveres,
David, Leonidas, Tell, Joan of Arc,—
He never has paid the price of happiness,
Is bankrupt debtor to his fate, at heart
An abject coward; never has fought a fight
That made him champion of one losing cause
Of all the appealing causes of the world;
Smugly complacent while his country lies
Stricken by rotting greed's slow pestilence;
A hearthstone patriot, perishing for vision,
Content if but the deluge 'whelm not him;
Slave of his caste, prating of liberty;
Dull partisan, whose personal honesty
Makes him a cloak for the smooth-spoken thieves
That swarm the coffers of Prosperity.

Is it too late, and were it worth the while,
To rouse this sleeper from his living death,
That, struck, like Saul, with glory of the Truth,
He might become a new star in Man's heaven?