What! with the wisdom of the heavens, dispense?
The Peace, for which our longings grow intense,
Comes through the stars to earth, and but thereby.

What splits dark mid-night and gives earth a thrill?
All stars merged into one--our Country's aim.
It is a lightening, formed by God, to flame
Across the ages and flash bolts to kill
The stranglers, who the heart or spirit, main,
Or choke black in the face, a People's Will.

LINCOLN'S LIGHTENING IN WILSON'S HANDS

I

Who is to rise and hurl God's flame world-wide,
As Lincoln hurled it, setting free a race
From Sphinx-shaped wrong--a beast with human face?
That shattered, how our land rose glorified
And, from the stars last laggard, soared, their guide!
Oh, who can take Promethean Lincoln's place,
To bring light where-so-ever he can trace
A Human, with his rights to soul denied?

He must be one, not only to illume
All ages, and not leave one region dim,
But at no height, allow his senses swim,
Or let mirages lure him with false bloom.
Lo! Here one comes with all the virtues prim
To hurl God's fire and end all human gloom.

II

'Tis Wilson takes God's flame from Lincoln's hand.
This Princeton man,--who has outgrown the prince,
A hundred years, and, in the ocean since,
Seen with delight, Eternity expand
And loom in glory from the despot's strand,--
Shapes fourteen dazzling bolts without a wince.
He pauses. Why not hurl them and convince
The world that, hence-forth, not one thrall shall stand?

What! Wilson's arm lacks strength to hurl the flame,
God gave to Lincoln for the Human race?
Look! Look! it falls. What! Gone? Quenched by dark space?
No; it describes an orbit there, the same
As comets, and regains its heavenly place
For one to hurl it true, and doom Earth's Shame.

THE CATACLYSM

In Wilson we beheld and proudly hailed
The World's Deliverer. In him, we saw
A luminous being rise from earth and draw
All lands above the clouds. We were regaled
With justice cascades flow, long ice impaled
Upon high mountains. Was not Nature's thaw
From his heart heat for truth, Eternal Law?
His was the heat of all the stars, he scaled.

Though his ascension was like Christ's, sublime
With lift of continents and every isle,
He, less than Christ, succumbed to