O you, you hero grand of all my praise,
More worth to me than gold or perfect rhyme,
Whose image in my mind lights all my days,
Your courage calls up strength in me to climb,
And stepping never off the hard straight road
I strike up over full with my desire,
A man whose woken life is not a load,
But lifting light, with sight set ever higher.
Accepting “A is A”, you set your course
To free man from the links of guilt and force,
And true you struck the altruistic creed
That robbed the able for the brood of need.
Then grandly for yourself you did attain
That heroine you loved for your own gain.

O you, most selfish, egoistical,
O most severely logical, most sure
Of your life’s worth to compass all,
Who made yourself a being whole and pure,
A man-of-earth and god-of-earth in one,
Exacting trader, sacrificing naught,
But earning sovereign place within the sun
To fully joy the treasures you have bought.
O happy hero, happiest of all
That I have ever known or seen or heard,
Sublime and self-contained, supremely just,
Within my soul I hear your upward call,
And with my mind I seize your reasoned word,
And with your light I seek, because I must.

For I’m the worshipper who worships man,
And I am man, and all my life is mine,
And you are me—the end that I began,
And in your stance is my whole life’s design.
I worship me through you, my ego’s light,
A man-made light that’s ever close to hand.
Together, side by side, with flags unfurled,
We march, and fight, and strike, to win the world.
Though evil men may move to cast you down,
May image you as lesser than you are,
It’s me created you that casts a frown,
Till they grow dim, and you a brighter star.
The worshipper of heroes is a height,
And none may reach, except by his own light.