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Poems (Hoffman)/The Procession

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4567068Poems — The ProcessionMartha Lavinia Hoffman
THE PROCESSION
Lo, 'tis a vast procession passing byFrom the great amphitheater of the past!The cloistered avenues of imageryGlow with the flame-light from their torches cast,The suns of centuries hurried to their goal,Their goal the chaos of the past unveiled,The moons and stars of years beyond control;Are these their torches, these by distance paled?No; from their hands the quenchless font of flameShines brightening over suns forever set,The burning rays of Truth's immortal fameForbid the future, to the past forget;
But who are they of silent, stately treadStill moving on to martial music sweetWhile careless hands by passing impulse ledAre scattering briers and blossoms at their feet?O, these are they with whose life-victoriesThe past, the future lavishly endowsThe breezes of the coming centuriesShall lightly wave the laurels on their brows!
Ye crowds, who watch the grand processions marchAlong the cities' bannered avenues,Turn to where vague oblivion's boughs o'er-archFrom whose deep shades this regal train issuesDown through the centuries crowded thoroughfaresGathering fresh numbers in their sure advance,Each face, the mark of life-won battle bears;They come not here by fortune, fate or chance.
And will you turn from these again to gazeOn some clan ego's petty pageantry?Time's grand centennials mark their day of daysFor theirs is more than vaunted vain display; Behold they come, a strong resistless forceUnstopped by opposition's adamantBut pressing onward in their kingly courseTruth's principles immortal to implant;
Yet not like plumed knights bearing pennons gayDown Fancy's lighted avenues they come,O what a thoughtful, earnest train are theyAdvancing to old Time's year-measured drum,Not like grim soldiers marching on to war,Not like exultant gatherings nationalNo wave-washed empire boundary can barFrom any realm what they have won for all!
They who have laid Truth's pearl-hewn corner stoneAnd struck unerring blows at Falsity'Till her proud atoms to the four-winds blownBut Prophecy, how great her fall shall be!Ah! many figures there we recognize,Not by a memory of form or faceBut by that recognition that defiesThe cold, remorseless sweep of time and space.
Have we not walked with them in paths apart,Held with their thoughts benign communion sweet,Whispering soul to soul and heart to heartOr sat like children learning at their feet?But, lo, among their numbers there is noneLike to One only, more than all besideThorns for unfading laurel-wreaths He wonHe, who for man alone, hath lived and died.
The wreckless curb-stone-crowds, how many yetAre scattering cruel briers in His path,O, do they in their heedlessness forgetThat heavens of mercy yet will cloud with wrath! From the elixir of the purest truthTurn they toward an image built of naughtDrinking through life, in childhood, age and youthThe bitterness of some deceiver's plot.
Thanks be to you, ye great souls of the past,For the life-lessons ye have lived to teach;Thanks be to you that on Time's current castFresh leaves of truth float ever in our reach,And have they gone, the realms of imagery,Dissolve their magic barriers to the real,Roll in, ye waves of life's prosaic seaBut when will Fancy's queen their ranks reveal?
O they will come again when vain and weakSeemeth the strife of man to live for men,Unto our lives their deathless lives will speakDown through the noise of centuries that have been!O they will come, yea ever and anonWith that majestic presence high and calm;Until with them our teachers, we sit downTo the glad marriage-supper of the Lamb!