Life's Trumpet Call

We see this life of man,
    All crossed with joy and woe,
And ever seek, beyond our span,
    A better than we know.
So shoots the darkest star,
    To find its central sun;
So gleams, in firmaments afar,
    The eternal day begun.

O mystic Dawn, unseen
    By dwellers in the vale,
On peaks of daring thought serene,
    Thy golden light we hail!
Higher, and ever higher,
    Its rosy palms invite,
Where souls that ceased not to aspire,
    Stand robed in dazzling white.

A voice comes down the blue,
    From every kindling peak,
That calls us nobler work to do,
    And nobler goals to seek;
To climb the loftier zones,
    Where kings of earnest thought
Reign, and still wrestle for new thrones,
    With purer gold inwrought.

Forsaking, everywhere,
    The prizes cheaplier won,
The eternal morn of true and pure
    Shall light us on, and on,
Till, over summits dim,
    In purpling glooms, afar,
We see, through deepening glory, swim
    Our victory’s morning star.