Explore "Washington" by Irving Sidney Dix on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It is forever so -- when there is need / Of some clear, clarion voice to forward lead / God raiseth up a man from his own seed; / Not from the soft, luxurious lap of earth, / But from a nobler soil, so that from birth / The frame is moulded with a chosen food / That has one only end -- to make it good, / Full generous, far-sighted, firm and keen, / With strength to rise above the gross and mean -- / The sordid selfishness that like a curse / Drives from the heart the virtues it would nurse -- / That love of country, freedom's holy cause, / Justice, mercy, that eye for equal laws, / Faith in the future and our fellow-men, / Faith in the sword when shielded by the pen -- / And so it was with us -- when there was need / Of one commanding voice to forward lead, / God rais'd up here a man from His own seed; / And so came forth the gentle Washington, / Fair child of Fate, the nation's noblest son, / Whom Virtue fostered and whom Virtue won.
Some few there be whose feet knew rougher ground, / But few indeed a loftier summit found -- / Nurtured in tender soil, he held a path / Where others faltered, heeding not the wrath / Of any king or potentate or power -- / His was the hero-heart -- he saw the hour, -- / He knew the mighty odds, yet would not cower.