Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/548

 532 COATES KINNEY. [1850-60. For the weapon they wield, nor armor nor shield Endures for a single dint, Nor glave ■)yithstands, nor bayonet steeled, Nor powder, and ball, and flint: It touches the thing called slave or king, And the man doth reappear, As did from the toad the seraph spring At the touch of Ithuriel's spear ; And wherever down it strikes a crown. Says sovereign to serf. Amen ! — Amen ! and hurra, the people cry. For the Heroes of the Pen ! Upon old tomes, those catacombs Of the dead and buried time. They lay the base of glory's domes, And build with truth sublime; And from their height directing the fight Of the right ag*iinst the wrong, They fill the world with the lettered might Of eloquence and song. Nor buried they lie with those who die At threescore years and ten. But atop the piles they have builded, sleep The Heroes of the Pen. Hurra for the true ! of old or new. Who heroes lived or fell — Thermopylae's immortal few ! Hurra for the Switzer Tell ! Upvoice to sky the brave Gracchi ! Hurra for the Pole and the Hun ! For the men who made the great July ! Hurra for Washington ! Yet old time past would triumph at last — But hurra, and hurra again, For the heroes who triumph over time ! The Heroes of the Pen. MOTHER OF GLORY. We weary waiting for these glimmerings, That struggle singly through the difiicult rifts Of aspiration, winking us with mock : Oh, for some breezy circumstance, at once To take the cloud oflT from our starry thoughts. And let their glory constellate the dark ! Alas ! the mind's pure gold lies particled Deep in the silt of muddy generations ; And he moils long, who gathers ore enough To coin himself the costly price of fame. Under this delugmg degeneracy, The spirit's brightest outgrowths are of pain. As precious pearls are of disease in shells At bottom of the main. The miner delves. The diver dives : rich ore and sparkling pearls Put such a splendor on their ugly toil. As dazzles out the memory of their past, And thenceforth blazons them as diademed From on high. Thus is won renown. The slow. Still process of the rain, distilling down The great sweat of the sea, is never seen In the consummate spectacle flashed forth A seven-hued arch upon the cloud of heaven : So never sees the world those energies, Strong effort and long patience, which have stirred In low obscurity, and slowly heaved Its darkness up, till sudden glory spiings Forth from it, arching hke a perfect rain- bow. Think ye the lofty foreheads of the world. That beam like fuU moons through the night of time, Holding their calm, big splendor steadily Forever at the top of history —