You were kept hidden in a secret place, With white Sierras, white Niagaras— Hid under stalwart stars in this far space, Ages ere Tadmor or the man of Uz. ‘Tis yours to bear the World-State in your dream, To strike down Mammon and his brazen breed, To build the Brother-Future, beam on beam; Yours, mighty one, to shape the Mighty Deed. The armèd heavens lean down to hear your fame, America: rise to your high-born part! The thunders of the sea are in your name, The splendors and the terrors in your heart. Love’s To-Morrow _For Florence Sharon_ Ease of heart or ache of heart, Tell me, Love, the thing to be: Flower of dream or dust of dream, You can choose the one for me. Fire or ash of fire, who knows? Both are folded in the flame. Life all grey and life all rose Are hidden in your name. _January, 1900._ The Leader of the People Swung in the Purpose of the upper sphere, We sweep on to the century anear. But something makes the heart of man forebode: There is a new Sphinx watching by the road! Its name is Labor, and the world must hear— Must hear and answer its dread Question—yea, Or perish as the tribes of yesterday. Thunder and Earthquake crouch beyond the gate; But fear not: man is greater than his fate. For one will come with Answer—with a word Wherein the whole world’s gladness shall be heard; One who will feel the grief in every breast, The heart-cry of humanity for rest. So we await the Leader to appear, Lover of men, thinker and doer and seer, The hero who will fill the labor throne And build the Comrade Kingdom, stone by stone; That kingdom that is greater than the Dream Breaking through ancient vision, gleam by gleam— Something that Song alone can faintly feel, And only Song’s wild rapture can reveal. Thrilled by the Cosmic Oneness he will rise, Youth in his heart and morning in his eyes; While glory fallen from the far-off goal Will send mysterious splendor on his soul. Him shall all toilers know to be their friend; Him shall they follow faithful to the end. Though every leaf were a tongue to cry, “Thou must!” He will not say the unjust thing is just. Not all the fiends that curse in the eclipse Shall shake his heart or hush his lyric lips. His cry for justice, it will stir the stones From Hell’s black granite to the seraph thrones!