::R2314 : page 167::

THE TRUTH SHALL CONQUER

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“An arrowy shaft of lightning flame,
Forth from unlettered lips it came;
Winds bore it, and the songs of birds;
It clove its way in burning words,
And, on a holy mission sent,
Through languages and lands it went.

“Some heard it, but they did not heed,
Some welcomed and performed its deed,
Some fought it and were stricken dumb;
They knew not what a power had come,
And, struggling to eclipse the light,
Were crushed by its resistless might.

“It barbed the hero’s scorn of wrong,
The poet shaped it in his song;
It nerved the speaker on the stage,
With it the author warmed the page;
And hoary error shrank away,
Dazzled and blinded by its ray.

“O, spark from heaven, touched by thy light
The farthest hills with day are bright;
New forms of love and beauty rise,
New splendors tint the arching skies,
The ancient wrongs that vex us cease—
We hail the thousand years of peace.”
—Selected.

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— June 1, 1898 —