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19
No. 27. Hymn to the People.
Not to be alert with warrior strength,
To wield the sword or wave the glaive,
Or rise to conquer fame at length,
Proclaims the good or makes the brave.
To have the power to bide the scorn,
And rise above the hate and strife
Of those to wealth and title born,
Is the crowned courage of our life.
What are the swords that prop a king?
The farmer in his army's van,
The strength of soul that dares to spring
And show the monarch in the man.
Kings and the mightiest men of arms,
Strong as the heads of realms they bide
Sport as they may with Fortune's charms,
They are but leaves upon the tide.
In dim old sepulchers they lie,
The feast of silence and decay;
While the true world-heart beateth high,
And thrones itself upon today.
Give me the man whose hands have tossed
The corn-seed to the mellow soil;
Whose feet the forest's depths have crossed,
Whose brow is nobly crowned with toil.
C. D. Stuart.
First of all we must heed the cry of the children. We must deliver them from the taskmasters and turn them over to the schoolmasters. — Edward Bellamy.
The real conquerors of the world are not the generals, but thinkers; the mind that evolves plans for elevating man, not arms that crush and debase him.