Hopes—that the children of their prayers,
With them in valor vieing,
May do as noble deeds as theirs,
In living and in dying.
And make, for children yet to come,
The land of their bequeathing
The imperial and the peerless home
Of happiest beings breathing.
For this the warrior-path we tread,
The battle-path of duty,
And change, for field and forest-bed,
Our bowers of love and beauty.
Music! bid thy minstrels play
No tunes of grief or sorrow,
Let them cheer the living brave to-day,
They may wail the dead to-morrow.
Such were the words, unvoiced by lip or tongue,
The thought-enwoven themes, the mental song
Of One, high placed, beside the slumberer’s bower,
In the stern, silent chieftainship of power.
A War-king, seated on his saddle throne,
A listener to no counsels but his own,
The soldier leader of a soldier band,
Whose prescient skill, quick eye, and brief command,
