‘Even toward dark’

Archibald MacLeish in 1944.

“We are as great as our belief in human liberty—no greater. And our belief in human liberty is only ours when it is larger than ourselves: liberty, as Mr. Lincoln put it, ‘not alone to the people of this country but hope to the world.’ We must become again his ‘last, best hope of earth’ if we wish to be the great Republic which his love once saved. We know that we must say so even now, even toward dark, without voice to lead us, without a leader standing to come forth. We must say it for ourselves. No one else will say it for us

Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982), poet, playwright, essayist, government official and lawyer. He lived much of his adult life in Conway, Mass. This was in a column he wrote for The New York Times of July 3, 1976. He referenced the Watergate scandal.