All who move onward—howsoe'er delayed—
Who learn, that they may teach:
Who overcoming pain and weariness,
In life's long battle bear a noble part;
All who, like him,—greatest of gifts!—possess
The genius of the heart!
How should we praise whose deeds belittle praise,
Whose monument perpetual is our land
Saved by his wisdom, in disastrous days,
From tyranny's strong hand?—
How praise whose Titan-thought, beyond Earth's ken
Aspiring, tamed the lightnings in revolt,
Subduing to the will of mortal men
The awful thunderbolt?
Our debt looms larger than our love can pay:
We know not with what homage him to grace
Whose name outlasts the monument's decay,—
A glory to our race!
With tireless hope, he seems to move before
Beck'ning to all that helpful is and free:
A lover of mankind, inheritor
Of Immortality!
