Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/191

DARTMOUTH ODE For us, who struggle yet, and wait,

Sent forth too early and too late!

But yours shall be our tenure handed down,

Conveyed in blood, stamped with the martyr's crown;

For which the toilers long have wrought,

And poets sung, and heroes fought;

The new Saturnian age is yours,

That juster season soon to be

On the near coasts (whereto your vessels sail

Beyond the darkness and the gale),

Of proud Atlantis risen from the sea!

You shall not know the pain that now endures

The surge, the smiting of the waves,

The overhanging thunder,

The shades of night which plunge engulfed under

Those yawning island-caves;

But in their stead for you shall glisten soon

The coral circlet and the still lagoon,

Green shores of freedom, blest with calms,

And sunlit streams and meads, and shadowy palms:

Such joys await you, in our sorrows' stead;

Thither our charts have almost led;

Nor in that land shall worth, truth, courage, ask for alms.

X

VALETE ET SALVETE

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