The poet, looking back upon the hopes he has cherished, perceives that
he has fallen far short of achieving them. The songs he has sung are
less sweet than those he has dreamed of singing; the wishes he has
wrought into facts are less noble than those that are yet unfulfilled.
But he looks forward to the time when all that he desires for humankind
shall yet come to pass. The praise will not be his; it will belong to
others. Still, he does not envy those who are destined to succeed where
he failed. Rather does he rejoice that through them his hopes for the
race will be realized. And he is happy that by longing for just such a
triumph he shares in it--he makes it _his_ triumph.
Let the thick curtain fall;
I better know than all
How little I have gained,
How vast the unattained.
Not by the page word-painted
Let life be banned or sainted:
Deeper than written scroll
The colors of the soul.
Sweeter than any sung
My songs that found no tongue
Nobler than any fact
My wish that failed to act.
Others shall sing the song,
Others shall right the wrong,--
Finish what I begin,
And all I fail of win.
What matter, I or they?
Mine or another's day,
So the right word be said
And life the sweeter made?
Hail to the coming singers!
Hail to the brave light-bringers!
Forward I reach and share
All that they sing and dare.
The airs of heaven blow o'er me;
A glory shines before me
Of what mankind shall be,--
Pure, generous, brave, and free.
A dream of man and woman
Diviner but still human,
Solving the riddle old,
Shaping the Age of Gold!
The love of God and neighbor;
An equal-handed labor;
The richer life, where beauty
Walks hand in hand with duty.
Ring, bells in unreared steeples,
The joy of unborn peoples!
Sound, trumpets far off blown,
Your triumph is my own.
Parcel and part of all,
I keep the festival,
Fore-reach the good to be,
And share the victory.
I feel the earth move sunward,
I join the great march onward,
And take, by faith, while living,
My freehold of thanksgiving.
_John Green leaf Whittier._