Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/425

Rh Yet a soul shall hear,

Some soul shall take heed,

And the rose and the deed,

They shall sow their seed.

JOHN MALONE

"LOST LEADERS"

I

leaders"—no, they are not lost

Like shrunken leaves the wild wind tost.

Them only shall we mourn who failed;

When came the fight—who faltered, quailed.

II

Raged not through blood and battle grime

These heroes of our land and time;

The foes they fought, with dauntless deed,

Were shameless vice and maddened greed.

III

Not lost, not lost the noble dead—

By them our doubting feet are led.

Stars of our dark, sun of our day,

They guide, they light the climbing way.

IV

And if, in their celestial flight,

The mist hath hid those forms from sight,