Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of the Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, And the choice goes by forever 'twix that darkness and that light.

Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand, Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land? Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 'tis Truth alone is strong, And albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong.

Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness 'twix old systems and the Word; Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,- Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.


James Russel Lowell from The Present Crisis