Classic Poem

When quiet meadows shine beneath the sun
Of the grand twentieth century: when the race
Lifts up towards cloudless heaven a tearless face:
When the far hills we cannot climb are won,
Strange prospects seen, and deeds undreamed of done:
Look back, — look back, — ye dwellers in the land,
To us who at the century's strong gates stand
But pass them not — fast falling one by one! —

We sang the future, though the past loomed dread
Behind us: sang the morning though the night
Had not yet opened full-fledged wings for flight;
Born in the mid-strife of a century red,
We sang the advent of a century white: —
We sang the living, — knee-deep in the dead.