Silent, like men in so­lemn haste,
Girded way­far­ers of the waste,
We pass out at the world’s wide gate,
Turning our back on all its state;
We press along the nar­row road
That leads to life, to bliss, to God.

We can­not and we would not stay;
We dread the snares that throng the way,
We fling aside the weight and sin,
Resolved the vic­to­ry to win;
We know the pe­ril, but our eyes
Rest on the splen­dor of the prize.

No idl­ing now, no waste­ful sleep,
From Chris­tian toil our limbs to keep;
No shrink­ing from the des­per­ate fight
No thought of yield­ing or of flight,
No love of pre­sent gain or ease,
No seek­ing man nor self to please.

No sor­row for the loss of fame,
No dread of scan­dal on our name;
No ter­ror for the world’s sharp scorn,
No wish that taunt­ing to re­turn;
No hat­red can our hat­red move,
And en­mi­ty but kin­dles love.

No sigh for laugh­ter left be­hind,
Or plea­sures scat­tered to the wind,
No look­ing back on So­dom’s plains,
No list­en­ing still to Ba­bel’s strains,
No tears for Egypt’s song and smile,
No thirst­ing for its flow­ing Nile.

No va­ni­ty nor fol­ly now;
No fad­ing garland round our brow,
No moody mus­ings in the grove,
No pang of dis­ap­point­ed love,
But with brave heart and stea­dy eye,
We on­ward march to vic­to­ry.

What though with wea­ri­ness op­pressed?
’Tis but a lit­tle, then we rest.
This throb­bing heart and burn­ing brain
Will soon be calm and cool again.
Night is far spent and morn is near,
Morn of the cloud­less and the clear!

’Tis but a lit­tle, and we come
To our re­ward, our crown, our home!
Another year, it may be less,
And we have crossed the wil­der­ness,
Finished the toil, the rest be­gun,
The bat­tle fought, the tri­umph won!

We grudge not, then, the toil, the way;
Its end­ing is the end­less day!
We shrink not from these tem­pests keen,
With lit­tle of the calm be­tween;
We wel­come each des­cend­ing sun;
Ere morn, our joy may be be­gun!