Poems (Hoffman)/Unwritten History
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
There are romances unwritten, there are poems never penned,There are battles all unseen and unrenowned,There are heroines and heroes, that no record shall attend,There are hidden histories never to be found,There are songs unsung and comedies and tragedies untold,There are words of grandest eloquence unsaid,There are gems of thought and feeling that no settings ever hold,Books unprinted, scenes unpainted, lives unread.On the printed page encircled by the rainbow pledge of Fame,In the paintings in the gallery of Art,In the sea of song that surges with full many a deathless nameAre the things that thrill the World's great mind and heart.Not alone on walls and bookshelves left by progress far behind,Not alone on lips that once could sway with speech,Not alone on souls and intellects to light and beauty blindAre the World's great heart-throbs lost to thrill or teach.Like a bird-song on the silence of the forest's slumbrous aisles,Like a wild-flower in the weeds and grasses lost,Like a sunbeam that unnoticed for a moment gleams and smiles,Like a sparkling wavelet on a trackless coast,Unheard, unseen, unnoticed in Nature's vast domain,Save by the great Creator's ceaseless care,Are waves of thought and feeling, of ecstasy and painLost with the mists of morning on the air;A song has surged unbidden through the cloister of a soulAnd the angels, yes, the angels must have heard, But no human audience spell-bound listened to its ocean roll.Pure and peaceful as the music of a birdA thought like some sweet wild-flower has blossomed in a heartAnd the angels watched its petals bright unfoldBut no mortal knew the beauty of its poetry and art,No tongue its hidden jewel ever told.A sunbeam has illumined perchance a darkened path—A sunbeam bright with love and light and hope,Or a shadow dark with sadness, or black with hate and wrathO'er some life's young morn of promise dared to grope;'Tis but a common life-wave that beat upon the beachTill broken on the rocks and backward castIt left no spray of seaweed or tinted shell in reach,Forgotten 'midst the surges of the past.When the clang of war is over there are heroes lifted highWhose noble deeds a nation's tongue applaudBut oh, the many thousands who have dared to do and dieUnhonored, for their country and their God!Where would the great commanders' illustrious laurels be,The generals' career of high renownBut for the common soldiers unknown to historyLike grain before the harvesters cut down?O'er the dust of battle-heroes there are monuments upraisedWhere the pennon of their triumph proudly wavesBut oh, the battle-heroes unhonored and unpraisedAt rest where grasses creep o'er unmarked graves!And some as brave, unshrinking in Duty's arduous pathAs the grandest hero history can name—They faced the red artillery, the cannon's demon wrathAnd wrote in lines of blood another's fame.Oh, the heroes who have figured on the great world's changing stage! Oh, the names that have been handed down the years!Every Nation has its heroes, its famous, every age,Monarchs of its scrolls and parchment, swords and spears;But like a few sands gathered from the ocean's glittering beachTo the heroes and the heroines (are they)Who have fought life's battles bravely, who have lived to learn and teachBut whose memoirs with their lives have passed away.Oh, the books that have been published, the histories compiled!Oh, the words that have been written, sung and said!They are nothing to the volumes o'er which few have wept or smiledBooks unprinted, scenes unpainted, lives unread!