Their gaze uplifting from shoals of despair
Like phantoms groping enswathed from the light
Up from miasmic depths, children of night,
Surge to the piping of Hope’s dulcet lay,
Souled like the lily, whose splendors declare
God’s mazèd paradox—purged of all blight,
Out from the quagmire, unsullied and fair.
Life holds her arms o’er the festering way,
Smiles, as their faith-sandalled rushes prevail,
Slowly the sun rides the marge of the day,
Wine to the lips sorely anguished and pale;
On, ever on, do the serried ranks sway
Charging the ultimate, rending the veil.