Classic Poem

Shall we sing till we find ourselves hoary
Of the years that will no more return?
Shall we live with the dead but in story,
And our hearts o'er the past ever yearn?
Ah, no! we are sick of the glory of kings and their victories gory,
Their fame and their wisdom we spurn.

Shall we say that our fathers fared better
In the days of their being than we?
This age to their time is no debtor—
We have learned that we dare to be free.
We will strike off each time-honored fetter, in peace or on battlefields wetter
And more red than the world cares to see.

The past with its tombstones is lying
In a valley of deepening night;
To-day has less sorrow and sighing,
Less fear of the future, less blight;
But the voice of To-morrow is crying: “Here the white feet of Noon-tide are flying,
And the mountains are splendid with light!”