Up to the house-tops of Hope, ye downcast sons of Despair, Ye whom experience has cheated and left defeated and bare! Back to your childhood's fond dreaming-- Truer was this than your deeming! Up from the purlieus of earth where men stifle and struggle for air; Catch from the roof-tops the joy of the vision outshining our prayer! Lo, where we stand, we are yours, whom the world hath not shaken nor shocked, We who still hoped and went on, though the multitudes melted and mocked. Yet fainting hearts watched from afar And followed our beckoning star, For God made us Hope's pioneers, To hearten men out of their fears! While the myriads wander and stray In the mists of a starless night, We are steadfast and march on our forward way, On to Eternity's morn, to the kingdom of limitless light! (3) Up to the house-tops of Love, ye generations of Hate, Up from the man-made hells where ye struggle and slander and slay! Up from your loveless stagnation, Up from your hearts' slow starvation! Come, for humanity calls to the heights where all benisons wait, Speaking through stars of the night of the luminous earnest of day! See we are round you, your brothers, the soldiers and martyrs of Love, Who poured forth our souls like a river, and labored and suffered and strove! From the flame and the gallows-tree, From the life-long, slow agony, Oh, we climbed up our Calvary, So winning Love's victory. We followed the Lord of the Star, Who died to discover Love's might! God grant we may herald to men near and far The dawn of the kingdom of Love, the kingdom of limitless light! VIII. Shepherds of Men _The picture for which this was written shows the shepherds standing over their slumbering flock under the shelter of a great rock. To them appears an angel, his feet almost touching the ground, bearing in one hand a star and raising the other hand to call attention to his message._ Shepherds of Men Shepherds of men--not sheep-- Your age-long watch who keep, Have ye grown weary waiting for the light? Are ye resigned to see Your silly charges free To wander lost and helpless in the night-- For whom the word was given of old That all should reach at last the eternal fold? Or, sunken in despair, Deem ye the cruel lair Of wolf and lion safe as man's domain? Think ye too deep, too deep, The human lies asleep, And nought but beast awake in blood and brain? Is there no inward-turning eye, No pitiful great yearning for the sky? Or faint you at the dearth Of comfort in the earth? Is Nature with the bad in man and beast So straitly leagued the rocks, That shelter now your flocks, Might flow like lead from furnace fires released, And e'en the soil on which you tread Prove fleeting as the clouds above your head?