My Triumph

My Triumph

by John Greenleaf Whittier

 

The autumn-time has come;

On woods that dream of bloom,

And over purpling vines,

The low sun fainter shines.

The aster-flower is failing,

The hazel’s gold is paling;

Yet overhead more near

The eternal stars appear!

And present gratitude

Insures the future’s good,

And for the things I see

I trust the things to be;

That in the paths untrod,

And the long days of God,

My feet shall still be led,

My heart be comforted.

O living friends who love me!

O dear ones gone above me!

Careless of other fame,

I leave to you my name.

Hide it from idle praises,

Save it from evil phrases:

Why, when dear lips that spake it

Are dumb, should strangers wake it?

Let the thick curtain fall;

I better know than all

How little I have gained,

How vast the unattained.

Not by the page word-painted

Let life be banned or sainted:

Deeper than written scroll

The colors of the soul.

Sweeter than any sung

My songs that found no tongue;

Nobler than any fact

My wish that failed of act.

Others shall sing the song,

Others shall right the wrong,—

Finish what I begin,

And all I fail of win.

What matter, I or they?

Mine or another’s day,

So the right word be said

And life the sweeter made?

Hail to the coming singers!

Hail to the brave light-bringers!

Forward I reach and share

All that they sing and dare.

The airs of heaven blow o’er me;

A glory shines before me

Of what mankind shall be,—

Pure, generous, brave, and free.

A dream of man and woman

Diviner but still human,

Solving the riddle old,

Shaping the Age of Gold!

The love of God and neighbor;

An equal-handed labor;

The richer life, where beauty

Walks hand in hand with duty.

Ring, bells in unreared steeples,

The joy of unborn peoples!

Sound, trumpets far off blown,

Your triumph is my own!

Parcel and part of all,

I keep the festival,

Fore-reach the good to be,

And share the victory.

I feel the earth move sunward,

I join the great march onward,

And take, by faith, while living,

My freehold of thanksgiving.

 

 

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174756