<h2><SPAN name="page98"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>THE LEADER TO BE</h2>
<p class="poetry">What shall the leader be in that great day<br/>
When we who sleep and dream that we are slaves<br/>
Shall wake and know that Liberty is ours?<br/>
Mark well that word—not yours, not mine, but ours.<br/>
For through the mingling of the separate streams<br/>
Of individual protest and desire,<br/>
In one united sea of purpose, lies<br/>
The course to Freedom.</p>
<p class="poetry"> When
Progression takes<br/>
Her undisputed right of way, and sinks<br/>
The old traditions and conventions where<br/>
They may not rise, what shall the leader be?</p>
<p class="poetry">No mighty warrior skilled in crafts of war,<br/>
Sowing earth’s fertile furrows with dead men<br/>
And staining crimson God’s cerulean sea,<br/>
To prove his prowess to a shuddering world.</p>
<p class="poetry"><SPAN name="page99"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
99</span>Nor yet a monarch with a silly crown<br/>
Perched on an empty head, an in-bred heir<br/>
To senseless titles and anemic blood.</p>
<p class="poetry">No ruler, purchased by the perjured votes<br/>
Of striving demagogues whose god is gold.<br/>
Not one of these shall lead to Liberty.<br/>
The weakness of the world cries out for strength.<br/>
The sorrow of the world cries out for hope.<br/>
Its suffering cries for kindness.</p>
<p class="poetry"> He
who leads<br/>
Must then be strong and hopeful as the dawn<br/>
That rises unafraid and full of joy<br/>
Above the blackness of the darkest night.<br/>
He must be kind to every living thing;<br/>
Kind as the Krishna, Buddha and the Christ,<br/>
And full of love for all created life.<br/>
Oh, not in war shall his great prowess lie,<br/>
Nor shall he find his pleasure in the chase.<br/>
Too great for slaughter, friend of man and beast,<br/>
Touching the borders of the Unseen Realms<br/>
And bringing down to earth their mystic fires<br/>
To light our troubled pathways, wise and kind<br/>
And human to the core, so shall he be,<br/>
The coming leader of the coming time.</p>
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