THE SMITHS

LET us say that the lives of our sires are lost;
 That the siren, hope, will elude and fade;
That the ages are blackened and battle tossed,
And we gain no step in a long decade.
What then, shall the wrong and the crime exhaust
Eternal justice? And shall no shade
Remain of the life that is crushed and crossed?

Let us say we have gained so much on time
That we hold some good which their lives have bought;
That not in vain at the wrong and crime
Have Freedom’s battles been aimed and fought;
That even failure may be sublime
In its fearful cost, in the lesson taught,
And its deathless lay in the realms of rhyme.

Alas for the Workers who cringe, or shun
The work cut out for their hands to do!
Alas for the poets who praise and pun!
Alas for the Triflers the wide world through,
And the manly race that is seldom run,
The wise contempt for the just and true,
The much to do and the little done!

And oh, for an unbought pen to brand
The sordid tricks of these latter days;
And a harp too nobly true and grand
To hymn a patron’s or prince’s praise—
One that shall sweep with an Odic hand
The carpet bards with their tomtit lays,
As the wild Missouri sweeps the sand.