Poems (Ford)/Past and Present

For works with similar titles, see Past and Present.

PAST AND PRESENT.

Our hearts go back to the ages fled,
As we read some old-time story,
And we wish the vanished years would rise,
With their hard-won crowns of glory;
That each laureled head,
From its lowly bed,
In its genius, might and power,
From the dust might spring,
O'er our days to fling
The light of its glorious dower.

Do we pause to think that the hero's way
Was one of strife and slaughter?
That the rubicon round many a throne
Was blood, instead of water?
If we emulate
The departed great,
Let them be saints and sages,
Not those who dyed
In life's red tide
The shrouds of buried ages.

Of old the sceptre, dyed in blood,
Instead of gold seemed coral,
And victors trod on quivering hearts
To grasp the lofty laurel.
Shall we backward turn
And weakly mourn
For the days of strife and terror,
When the arm of might
Was the judge of right,
And truth itself seemed error?

Fame tells us now of the glorious deeds
Of warrior, chief and peasant:
If the past has had its great and good
Then why should not the present?
The same great God
On sea and sod
With boundless love reigns o'er us;
Our hopes and fears
Are like to theirs
Who trod life's path before us.

Let us sigh no more for the days renowned
In olden song and story,
While the present holds before our eyes
Bright wreaths of fadeless glory;
Who acts his part
With an earnest heart
Upon life's varied stages,
Gilds his own days
With a light whose rays
Shall shine on the future ages.