• Author: Lowell, James Russell
• Editor: B-7413
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume 6
• Page Number:
• Date: 10 10 1917
• Tags:
• poetry

THE MOMENT TO DECIDE

Once to every man and naticn comes the moment to decide, In the strife for 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 ’twixt the darkness and that light. Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just; Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, Doubtirg in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied. 'Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers’ graves, Worshipers of light ancestral make the present light a crime— Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their time? Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make Plymouth Rock sublime? New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth; Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires, we ourselves must Pilgrims be, Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future’s portal with the Past’s blood-rusted key.

—James Russell Lowell.