Ella Wheeler Wilcox Oh Not For The Great Departed...

“Oh, not for the great departed

Who formed our country’s laws,

And not for the bravest-hearted

Who died in freedom’s cause;

And not for some living hero,

To whom all bend the knee,

My muse shall raise her song of praise,

But for the Man to be.

For out of the strife which women

Are passing through today,

A man that is more than human

Shall surely be born, I say;

A man in whose pure spirit

No dross of self will lurk,

A man who is strong to cope with wrong,

A Man who is proud to work.

A man with hope undaunted,

A man with God-like power,

Shall come when he is wanted,

Shall come at the needed hour.

He shall silence the din and clamor

Of clan disputing clan,

And toil’s long fight with purse-proud might

Shall triumph through this Man.

I know he is coming, coming,

To help, to guide, to save.

Though I hear no martial drumming

And see no flags that wave.

But the great soul-travail of woman,

And the bold, free thought unfurled,

And heralds that say he is on the way,

The coming Man of the world.

Mourn not for the vanished ages

With their grand, heroic men,

Who dwell in history’s pages

And live in the poet’s pen.

For the grandest times are before us,

And the world is yet to see

The noblest work of this old earth

In the Men that are to be.”