His tongue was touched with sacred fire,
He could not rest, he must speak out,
When Liberty lay stabbed, and doubt
Stalked through the night in vestments dire,—
When slaves uplifted manacled hands,
Praying in agony and despair,
And answer...
Weary, weary, desolate,
Sand-swept, parched, and cursed of fate;
Burning, but how passionless!
Barren, bald, and pitiless!
Through all ages baleful moons
Glared upon thy whited dunes;
And malignant, wrathful suns
Fiercely drank thy...
Each of us is like Balboa: once in all our lives do we,
Gazing from some tropic summit, look upon an unknown sea;
But upon the dreary morrow, every way our footsteps seek,
Rank and tangled vine and jungle block our pathway to the peak.
His tongue was touched with sacred fire,
He could not rest, he must speak out,
When Liberty lay stabbed, and doubt
Stalked through the night in vestments dire,—
When slaves uplifted manacled hands,
Praying in agony and despair,
And answer...
