It must have been before this humiliating event, which I cannot exactly date, that I was asked to deliver the poem before the Ohio Editorial Convention which used annually to grace its meeting with some expression in verse. There must have been an opening prayer and an address, but I remember neither of these, and I should not be able to remember my poem, or any part of it, if it had not afterward been printed in our newspaper, from which the kindness of a friend has rescued it for me. I have just read it over, not wholly with contempt, but not without compassion for those other editors who listened to it and could have followed its proud vaticinations but darkly. It appears that I then trusted the promises of a journalistic future which have not all been kept as yet, and that I cast my prophecies in a form and mood which I might have accused Tennyson of imitating if he had not been first with his "In Memoriam."
The Men that make the vanished past So brave, the present time so base, And people, with their glorious race, The golden future, far and vast!--
All ages have been dark to these, The true Knights Errant! who have done Their high achievements not alone In the remoter centuries;
But ever to their dawn's dim eye, Blinded with night-long sorcery, Warring with Shadows seemed to be,-- In victory, seemed to fall and die!
Noons glowed. The poet held each name In hushless music to the ear-- Low for the thinking few to hear, Loud for the noisy world's acclaim;
And pondering, one that turns the page Whereon their story hath been writ, Gathers a purer lore from it, Than all the wisdom of the sage;--
A simple lore of trust and faith For Life's fierce days of dust and heat,-- To keep the heart of boyhood sweet Through every passion, unto death--
To love and reverence his time, Not for its surface-growth of weeds, But for its goodly buried seeds,-- To hope, and weave a hopeful rhyme!
The vision does not seem very clear even to me, now, and I suppose not many of those kind, hard-working country printers and busy city journalists recognized themselves in my forecast of the coming newspaper man. Yet I think there is something in the glowing fancy which is here reflected only in part, and I believe some graduate of our university courses of journalism may possibly do worse than keep my fond dream in mind. In this case, the yawning counting-room may not so soon engulf his high intentions, and, keeping clear of that shining sepulcher of noble ideals for a while, he may thank me for my over-generous faith in him.