Somewhere adown the years there waits a man
Who shall give wings to what my soul has said:
Shall speak for me when I am mute and dead;
And shall perfect the work I but began.

What matter, therefore, if my word today
Falls on unwilling ears, finds few to praise?
Since some mere child, in his incipient days,
That word may win to walk a prophet's way?

And he, of greater gift, more favored state,
Shall speak to thousands where I speak to one:
Shall do the work that I would fain have done;
Helped to that fortune at my lonely gate.

God will not suffer any word to fail
That is not uttered for the hour's success:
No word that has in it the power to bless
Shall lack the means to make it of avail.

Who speaks the people's weal shall some day find
Voices to bear it to the people's will.
However potent be the present ill
They who assail it are tomorrow's kind.

And that tomorrow shall uphold their cause
Who fell not for the plaudits of today:
Those who are reckoned rebels in their day
Are always makers of tomorrow's laws.

Our present skeptics voice tomorrow's faith;
Today's disturbers bring tomorrow's peace:
'Tis they who dare to die who win release
For all their fellows from the fear of death.