Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE HEROIC AGE, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE HEROIC AGE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: He speaks not well who doth his time deplore
Last Line: Athens, I'96.
Subject(s): Patriotism


HE speaks not well who doth his time deplore,
Naming it new and little and obscure,
Ignoble and unfit for lofty deeds.
All times were modern in the time of them,
And this no more than others. Do thy part
Here in the living day, as did the great
Who made old days immortal! So shall men,
Gazing long back to this far-looming hour,
Say: "Then the time when men were truly men,
Though wars grew less, their spirits met the test
Of new conditions; conquering civic wrong;
Saving the state anew by virtuous lives;
Guarding the country's honor as their own,
And their own as their country's and their sons';
Defying leagued fraud with single truth;
Not fearing loss, and daring to be pure.
When error through the land raged like a pest,
They calmed the madness caught from mind to mind
By wisdom drawn from eld, and counsel sane;
And as the martyrs of the ancient world
Gave Death for man, so nobly gave they Life:
Those the great days, and that the heroic age."
ATHENS, I'96.





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