Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/189

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DARTMOUTH ODE

Embarked in Fancy's shallop there,
And with the current seek the river's mouth,
Finding the outer ocean grand and fair.
Ay, like a stream's perpetual tide,
Wave after wave each blithe, successive throng
Must join the main and wander far and wide.
To you the golden, vanward years belong!
Ye need not fear to leave the shore:
Not seldom youth has shamed the sage
With riper wisdom,—but to age
Youth, youth, returns no more!
Be yours the strength by will to conquer fate,
Since to the man who sees his purpose clear,
And gains that knowledge of his sphere
Within which lies all happiness,—
Without, all danger and distress,—
And seeks the right, content to strive and wait,
To him all good things flow, nor honor crowns him late.


VIII

PHAROS

One such there was, that brother elder-born
And loftiest,—from your household torn
In the rathe spring-time, ere
His steps could seek their olden pathways here.
Mourn!
Mourn, for your Mother mourns, of him bereft,—
Her strong one! he is fallen:
But has left
His works your heritage and guide,
Through East and West his stalwart fame divide.
Mourn, for the liberal youth,
The undaunted spirit whose quintessence rare,
Fanned by the Norseland air,
Saw flaming in its own white heat the truth
That Man, whate'er his ancestry,

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