James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.
October 16John Brown
By Eugene Fitch Ware (Ironquill) (18411911)
S
Except as men may make them;
Men are not great except they do and dare.
But States, like men,
Have destinies that take them—
That bear them on, not knowing why or where.
The philosophic searcher—
The WHY and WHERE all questionings defy,
Until we find,
Far back in youthful nurture,
Prophetic facts that constitute the WHY.
From braving the unequal;
All glory comes from daring to begin.
Fame loves the State
That, reckless of the sequel,
Fights long and well, whether it lose or win.
No illustration apter
Is seen or found of faith and hope and will.
Take up her story:
Every leaf and chapter
Contains a record that conveys a thrill.
Whose faith, whose fight, whose failing,
Fame shall placard upon the walls of time.
He dared begin—
Despite the unavailing,
He dared begin, when failure was a crime.
Some future cycle
Shall sweep the lake-gemmed uplands with its surge;
When, as with trumpet,
Of Archangel Michael,
Culture shall bid a colored race emerge;
There in constellations,
Shall gleam with spires and palaces and domes,
With marts wherein
Is heard the noise of nations;
With summer groves surrounding stately homes—
To cultured freemen
Shall tell of valor, and recount with praise
Stories of Kansas,
And of Lacedaemon—
Cradles of freedom, then of ancient days.
O’erlooking both Nyanzas,
The statured bronze shall glitter in the sun,
With rugged lettering: