Legacy

Each man must leave to earth a legacy;
Embarking on the waves of mystery
Must leave some footprint by the unknown sea.

Some leave behind them shining piles of gold;
Some leave behind them lineage of old;
Some leave behind but granite gray and cold.

Some leave behind a blood-encrusted sword;
Some leave behind love’s broken, silken cord ;
Some leave behind a monarch’s wand and word.

What leavest thou in legacy or lore?
What leavest thou, to be remembered more?
What leavest thou here on the silent shore?

Not sword alone, for long thy sword was cold,
Ancestral name or heaps of shining gold.
But this, the story that thy genius told.

Now still thy lips, impotent now thy hand;
But men shall find thy footprint in the sand
And many things shall see and understand.

For men shall walk with Him of Nazareth;
For men shall breathe faith’s everlasting breath
And solve the mystery of life and death.

This is the treasure that thou leavest, then;
This is the legacy thou leavest men –
Long sheathed thy sword, but ever speaks thy pen.