Poems (Van Rensselaer)/Our Kingdom
OUR KINGDOM
Sweet are the songs that yesterday hath sung;Sweet are the songs of a far-off to-morrow,The unknown words, the chiming chords unrung,That beauty from our faith in beauty borrow.But sweeter, sweetest, in my heart-strings playThe fragmentary cadences that flowTo syllables and harmonies to-day,Half caught, half fugitive, and loveliest so.
Who needeth songs of yesterday and farTo-morrows? Not or thou or I! Dimmed loveMay sing them, and love yet unborn. The starThat slowly faded at daybreak aboveOur eastern sea, the star that gathers light,Even as we watch, beyond the hilly west,The one that in the zenith at midnightShall the long lingering of our joy attest—
These are the beacons and the boundariesOf life for us, the architects of To-day.This is our realm, dear heart, its radianciesThe songs we weave, its winds the harps we play.And ever it is ours: each time the nightRolls from our path to let the morning in,Not shall it come with unfamiliar light,Not shall To-morrow but To-day begin.