Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/247

HOMEWARD BOUND The work his boyhood's chieftain wrought,

The faith which life nor substance spared?

There are who serve their Country well

Yet stoop to crave her light acclaim,—

His patriot pulses leapt and fell

Nor asked the glory of a name.

Love, honor, rose to him indeed,

As vapors toward the sunlit sky,

But his the generous heart, at need,

Without a pang to put them by.

Even so, a white star on his crest,

We knew him in his stainless youth;

Even so—not else than loyalest—

The world his manhood learned in sooth;

And if there be—and if there be

A realm where lives still forward roll,

Even so—no other—strong and free

Through time and space shine on, dear Soul!

HOMEWARD BOUND

ON THE RETURN TO AMERICA OF THE REMAINS OF JOHN PAUL JONES

proud, uplifted head

The fair Republic claims her dead;

With outstretched hands—the hands he fought to free—

Awaits, O not in ruth,

The lover of her youth,

Her Bayard of the sea.

Let the sea once more caress him

And the Land he loved possess him, 217