Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/370

342 Whose power is mightier than the mightiest crown,

Because that soon he lays that power down.

Whose wish, linked to the people's, shall exceed

The force of civic wrong and banded greed.

Whose voice, in friendship or in warning heard,

Brings to the nations a free people's word;

And, where the opprest out from the darkness grope,

'T is as the voice of freedom and of hope.

O pray that he may rightly rule the state,

And grow, in truly serving, truly great.

THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT

AT WASHINGTON, D. C.

BUILDERS OF THE STATE

builds the state? Not he whose power

Rooted in wrong, in gold intrenched,

Makes him the regent of the hour;

The eternal light cannot be quenched:

This shall outlive his little span;

Shine fierce upon each tainted scheme;

Shall show where shame blots all the plan;

The treachery in the dazzling dream.