By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track, Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back, And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned One new word of that grand _Credo_ which in prophet-hearts hath burned Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven upturned. For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands, On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands; Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn, While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn. 'Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves; Worshipers of light ancestral make the present light a crime;-- Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their time? Turn those tracks toward Past or Future that make Plymouth Rock sublime? They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires, Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar-fires; Shall we make their creed our jailer? shall we in our haste to slay, From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to-day? New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth; Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key. --James Russell Lowell. COLUMBUS Behind him lay the gray Azores, Behind the Gates of Hercules; Before him not the ghost of shores, Before him only shoreless seas. The good mate said: "Now, we must pray, For lo! the very stars are _gone_, Speak, Admiral, what shall I say?" "Why say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'" "My men grow mutinous day by day; My men grow ghastly wan and weak." The stout mate thought of home; a spray Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. "What shall I say, brave Admiral, say, If we sight naught but seas at dawn?" "Why, you shall say at break of day, 'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!'" They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow, Until at last the blanched mate said: "Why, now not even God would know Should I and all my men fall dead. These very winds forget their way, For God from these dread seas is gone. Now speak, brave Admiral, speak and say--" He said, "Sail on! sail on! and on!"