THE LEADER TO BE

What shall the leader be in that great day

When we who sleep and dream that we are slaves

Shall wake and know that Liberty is ours?

Mark well that word — not yours, not mine, but ours.

For through the mingling of the separate streams

Of individual protest and desire,

In one united sea of purpose, lies

The course to Freedom.

When Progression takes

Her undisputed right of way, and sinks

The old traditions and conventions where

They may not rise, what shall the leader be?

No mighty warrior skilled in crafts of war,

Sowing earth's fertile furrows with dead men

And staining crimson God's cerulean sea,

To prove his prowess to a shuddering world.

Nor yet a monarch with a silly crown

Perched on an empty head, an in-bred heir

To senseless titles and anemic blood.

No ruler, purchased by the perjured votes

Of striving demagogues whose god is gold.

Not one of these shall lead to Liberty.

The weakness of the world cries out for strength.

The sorrow of the world cries out for hope.

Its suffering cries for kindness.

He who leads

Must then be strong and hopeful as the dawn

That rises unafraid and full of joy

Above the blackness of the darkest night.

He must be kind to every living thing;

Kind as the Krishna, Buddha and the Christ,

And full of love for all created life.

Oh, not in war shall his great prowess lie,

Nor shall he find his pleasure in the chase.

Too great for slaughter, friend of man and beast,

Touching the borders of the Unseen Realms

And bringing down to earth their mystic fires

To light our troubled pathways, wise and kind

And human to the core, so shall he be,

The coming leader of the coming time.