condolence; smiles, not tears, To guide me through the channels of the years. Oh, I am blinded by the blaze of light That shines upon me from the Infinite. Blurred is my vision by the close approach To unseen shores, whereon the times encroach. The Old Century The Old Century Illusion, all illusion. List and hear The Godless cannons, booming far and near. Flaunting the flag of Unbelief, with Greed For pilot, lo! the pirate age in speed Bears on to ruin. War’s most hideous crimes Besmirch the record of these modern times. Degenerate is the world I leave to you,— My happiest speech to earth will be—adieu. The New Century The New Century You speak as one too weary to be just. I hear the guns—I see the greed and lust. The death throes of a giant evil fill The air with riot and confusion. Ill Ofttimes makes fallow ground for Good; and Wrong Builds Right’s foundation, when it grows too strong. Pregnant with promise is the hour, and grand The trust you leave in my all-willing hand. The Old Century The Old Century As one who throws a flickering taper’s ray To light departing feet, my shadowed way You brighten with your faith. Faith makes the man Alas, that my poor foolish age outran Its early trust in God! The death of art And progress follows, when the world’s hard heart Casts out religion. ’Tis the human brain Men worship now, and heaven, to them, means—gain. The New Century The New Century Faith is not dead, tho’ priest and creed may pass, For thought has leavened the whole unthinking mass, And man looks now to find the God within. We shall talk more of love, and less of sin, In this new era. We are drawing near Unatlassed boundaries of a larger sphere. With awe, I wait, till Science leads us on, Into the full effulgence of its dawn. DEATH HAS CROWNED HIM A MARTYR (Written on the day of President McKinley’s death) In the midst of sunny waters, lo! the mighty Ship of State Staggers, bruised and torn and wounded by a derelict of fate, One that drifted from its moorings in the anchorage of
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