_

BY RICHARD WATSON GILDER

Since ancient Time began
Ever on some great soul God laid an infinite burden--
The weight of all this world, the hopes of man.
Conflict and pain, and fame immortal are his guerdon!

And this the unfaltering token
Of him, the Deliverer--what though tempests beat,
Though all else fail, though bravest ranks be broken,
He stands unscared, alone, nor ever knows defeat

Such was that man of men;
And if are praised all virtues, every fame
Most noble, highest, purest--then, ah! then,
Upleaps in every heart the name none needs to name.

Ye who defeated, 'whelmed,
Betray the sacred cause, let go the trust;
Sleep, weary, while the vessel drifts unhelmed;
Here see in triumph rise the hero from the dust!

All ye who fight forlorn
'Gainst fate and failure; ye who proudly cope
With evil high enthroned; all ye who scorn
Life from Dishonor's hand, here take new heart of hope.

Here know how Victory borrows
For the brave soul a front as of disaster,
And in the bannered East what glorious morrows
For all the blackness of the night speed surer, faster.

Know by this pillared sign
For what brief while the powers of earth and hell
Can war against the spirit of truth divine,
Or can against the heroic heart of man prevail.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] _By permission of the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin & Co._

* * * * *

GEORGE WASHINGTON

From "_Washington and the Generals of the Revolution_"

It is a truth, illustrated in daily experience, and yet rarely noted or
acted upon, that, in all that concerns the appreciation of personal
character or ability, the instinctive impressions of a community are
quicker in their action, more profoundly appreciant, and more reliable,
than the intellectual perceptions of the ablest men in the community.
Upon all those subjects that are of moral apprehension, society seems to
possess an intelligence of its own, infinitely sensitive in its
delicacy, and almost conclusive in the certainty of its determinations;
indirect, and unconscious in its operation, yet unshunnable in sagacity,
and as strong and confident as nature itself. The highest and finest
qualities of human judgment seem to be in commission among the nation,
or the race. It is by such a process, that whenever a true hero appears
among mankind, the recognition of his character, by the general sen