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| I WILL sing a song of heroes, | |
| Crowned with manhood’s diadem, | |
| Men that lift us when we love them | |
| Into nobler life with them. | |
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| I will sing a song of heroes | 5 |
| To their God-sent mission true, | |
| From the ruin of the old time | |
| Grandly forth to shape the new: | |
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| Men that, like a strong-winged zephyr, | |
| Come with freshness and with power, | 10 |
| Bracing fearful hearts to grapple | |
| With the problem of the hour: | |
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| Men whose prophet-voice of warning | |
| Stirs the dull, and spurs the slow, | |
| Till the big heart of a people | 15 |
| Swells with hopeful overflow. | |
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| I will sing the song of Terah, | |
| Abraham in tented state, | |
| With his sheep and goats and asses, | |
| Bearing high behests from Fate; | 20 |
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| Journeying from beyond Euphrates, | |
| Where cool Orfa’s bubbling well | |
| Lured the Greek and lured the Roman, | |
| By its verdurous fringe to dwell. | |
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| When he left the flaming idols, | 25 |
| Sun by day and Moon by night, | |
| To believe in something deeper | |
| Than the shows that brush the sight, | |
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| And, as a traveller wisely trusteth | |
| To a practiced guide and true, | 30 |
| So he owned the Voice that called him | |
| From the faithless Heathen crew. | |
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| And he travelled from Damascus | |
| Southward where the torrent tide | |
| Of the sons of Ammon mingles | 35 |
| With the Jordan’s swelling pride. | |
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| To the pleasant land of Schechem, | |
| To the flowered and fragrant ground | |
| ’Twixt Mount Ebal and Gerizim, | |
| Where the bubbling wells abound. | 40 |
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| To the stony slopes of Bethel, | |
| And to Hebron’s greening glade, | |
| Where the grapes with weighty fruitage | |
| Droop beneath the leafy shade. | |
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| And he pitched his tent in Mamre, | 45 |
| ’Neath an oak-tree tall and broad | |
| And with pious care an altar | |
| Built there to the one true God. | |
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| And the voice of God came near him, | |
| And the angels of the Lord | 50 |
| ’Neath the broad and leafy oak-tree | |
| Knew his hospitable board; | |
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| And they hailed him with rare blessing | |
| For all peoples richly stored, | |
| Father of the faithful, elect | 55 |
| Friend of God, Almighty Lord. | |
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| And he sojourned ’mid the people | |
| With high heart and weighty arm, | |
| Wise to rein their wandering worship, | |
| Strong to shield their homes from harm. | 60 |
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| And fat Nile’s proud Pharaohs owned him, | |
| As a strong, God-favored man, | |
| Like Osiris casting broadly | |
| Largess to the human clan. | |
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| And he lived long years a witness | 65 |
| To a pure high-thoughted creed, | |
| That in ripeness of the ages | |
| Grew to serve our mortal need. | |
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| Not a priest and not a churchman | |
| From all proud pretentions free, | 70 |
| Shepherd chief and shepherd-warrior | |
| Human-faced like you and me: | |
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| Human-faced and human-hearted, | |
| To the pure religion true, | |
| Purer than the gay and sensuous | 75 |
| Grecian, wider than the Jew. | |
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| Common sire, whom Jew and Christian, | |
| Turk and Arab, name and praise; | |
| Common as the sun that shines | |
| On East and West with brothered rays. | 80 |
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