President William M’Kinley

Blessed art thou. Fate linked thee with her sons,
Ye form the trinity of martyred ones;
A nation’s praise is jealous of its grief,
Therefore thy glory’s day cannot be brief.

So poorly schooled in littleness wast thou
No party stamped its ethics on thy brow.
So future-sighted was thy leadership
Earth’s farthest bounds hailed it with welcome lip.

Thy life work was to lift men far above
Mere selfishness to a pure country love.
Thou didst become, dwarfed not by creed or clan,
A modern miracle, a nation’s man.

The good of yesterday we have unsought,
To-day lives in to-morrow’s generous thought;
So the fanatic’s tongue, the assassin’s knife
Can find no way to chill a nation’s life.