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EVERY-DAY HEROES

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 28, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 30.

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EVERY-DAY HEROES.

By Thomas Wistar

No battered flags are in their trail, No garments drenched with blood, No martial music swells the gale To help their hardihood.
Yet firmly in the post of right, To do or die, they stand, And never think to shirk or slight The living trust in hand.
No stern command, no trumpet call, These inborn heroes need; Wherever death and danger fall, Instinctively they speed.
No royalty of creed or birth, No outward sign is theirs; Unknown, unguessed, the hero’s worth Till some great deed he dares.
Yet countless sons the land may claim, In hamlet and in hall, Who quick would rise in manhood’s name And sacrifice their all.
Another’s risk, another’s pain, Is all the spur they need; To save the helpless is their gain; No other thought they heed.
—Thomas Wistar, in City and State.