To-Day

The Past has done its work! How well, 
     How ill, it matters not to say;
For lo! upon our ears doth swell 
     The summons of To-Day.

A king of kings the kingliest!
     No prouder ever graced a throne; 
His realm the earth from east to west.
     From north to southern zone.

His are the potencies sublime
     That bend the nations to his sway;
And every land and every clime 
     Alike his power obey.

The ages that have gone before,
     The awful Past, now vague and dim,
Left, lapsing from Time's crumbling shore, 
     Their good and ill to him.

With these, for glory or for shame, 
     As this or that his work shall crown.
He builds the temple of his fame, 
     His record of renown.

His subjects we! to aid, if true — 
     If false, to mar — the grand design
That bids the old earth bloom anew, 
     Filled with a life divine.

He summons us to nobler tasks
     Than ever in the Past were wrought.
And, for his larger purpose, asks 
     A nobler style of thought:

Brave wills to dare, strong arms to do 
     The work that will not brook delay;
Wise heads, warm hearts, to duty true, 
     And loyal to To-Day.

No dim, vague dreams of faded flowers, 
     Whose fragrance never comes again ;
No lingering with the buried hours, 
     Infirm of heart and brain,

Will he accept. Our king demands 
     Unswerving fealty to his throne;
The loyalty of hearts and hands, 
     A service all his own.

The selfish ease we must resign
     That shrinks from battling old abuse,
And learn that labor is divine, 
     Divine the life of use.

His call is heard in every sigh
     That heaves the sorrow-laden breast ;
In every wild, despairing cry
     Power wrings from the oppressed;

In every ancient wrong that claims
     From age authority to be; 
In cruel fears, and haunting shames,
     And voiceless misery;

In broken hearts, in wasted lives,
     In all the toil, and moil, and din, 
From which the spirit vainly strives
     Some notes of peace to win.

Fold not your arms in listless mood,
     O brothers, for he speaks to you! 
Need hath he of the wise and good,
     Need of the brave and true.

There's room for all and work for all,
     The urgent need rebukes delay; 
And lo! the nations hear the call,
     The summons of To-Day!