Lines ["The death of men is not the death"]

The death of men is not the death     Of rights that urged them to the fray;         For men may yield         On battle-field     A noble life with stainless shield,         And swords may rust         Above their dust,         But still, and still         The touch and thrill     Of freedom's vivifying breath         Will nerve a heart and rouse a will         In some hour, in the days to be,     To win back triumphs from defeat;     And those who blame us then will greet         Right's glorious eternity.     For right lives in a thousand things;         Its cradle is its martyr's grave,     Wherein it rests awhile until         The life that heroisms gave     Will rise again, at God's own will,         And right the wrong,         Which long and long     Did reign above the true and just;     And thro' the songs the poet sings,     Right's vivifying spirit rings;         Each simple rhyme         Keeps step and time     With those who marched away and fell,         And all his lines         Are humble shrines     Where love of right will love to dwell.