Soon the banners passed from sight, the last straggler disappeared behind the hill and the captive was left alone.
The brave knight died in his dungeon, but the story of his heroism lived.

What the knight learned in suffering the poets have taught in song.

The captive hero has a permanent place in civilization, though the foresight of his influence was denied him.
Those whose harvest is delayed are a great company.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning exclaiming, "I have not used half the powers God has given me," poets dying ere the day was half done; the inventors and reformers denied their ideals; obscure and humble workmen--the mechanic who emancipates man by his machine; the artisan whose conveniences are endless benefactions to our homes; the smith whose honest anchor holds the ship in time of storm--all these labored and died without seeing the fruitage, but other men entered into their labors.
To parents who have passed through all the thunder of life's battle and stand at the close of life's day discouraged because children are unripe, thoughtless and immature; to publicists and teachers, sowing God's precious seed, but denied its harvests; to individuals seeking to perfect their character within themselves comes this thought--that character is a harvest so rich as to ask for long waiting and the courage of far-off results.

Nature can perfect physical processes in twenty years, but long time is asked for teaching the arm skill, the tongue its grace of speech, to clothe reason with sweetness and light, to cast error out of the judgment, to teach the will hardness and the heart hope and endurance.
Four hundred years passed by before the capstone was placed upon the Cathedral of Cologne, but no trouble requires such patient toil as the structure of manhood.