O CAPTAIN of the Great Event, <br />Which yet shall dew with crimson dew <br />The green coasts of our continent, <br />I know not where to look for you! <br />I know when doom shall mass about <br />Our shores, and strike their music dumb, <br />A something in your blood shall shout: <br />'The hour is mine! Behold, I come!' <br />For, if one truth since time began <br />O'ertowers all other truths, it is: <br />There ever comes the Master-Man <br />To make the epic moment his. <br />In reeling ranks and riven steel, <br />On red-drenched fields and seas of blood, <br />The bruised and broken foe shall feel <br />A valour not to be withstood; <br />The crisis shall not lack its lord, <br />The noon its sun, the night its star; <br />Beneath your high, directing sword <br />The triumph-tide shall surge afar. <br />Till God make plain your path, and fill <br />Your soul with martial ecstasy, <br />Perchance you toil in mart or mill, <br />Unconscious of your destiny. <br />Perchance you wait the breathing hour <br />Unborn — undrawn from distant spheres — <br />For, though the clouds of menace lower, <br />They may not break for years and years. <br />Yet, be it soon or be it late, <br />Or be it when this voice is mute, <br />O guardian of our golden State, <br />The foe shall find you resolute. <br />O Captain of the Great Event, <br />Which yet shall dew with crimson dew <br />The green coasts of our continent, <br />A victor's laurels wait for you.<br /><br />Roderic Quinn<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-master-man/
