The sun not in their faces,—shall abstract
No more our strength: we will not be discrowned
Through treasuring their crowns, nor deign transact
A barter of the present, in a sound,
For what was counted good in foregone days.
O Dead, ye shall no longer cling to us
With your stiff hands of desiccating praise,
And hold us backward by the garment thus,
To stay and laud you in long virelays!
Still, no! we will not be oblivious
Of our own lives, because ye lived before,
Nor of our acts, because ye acted well,—
We thank you that ye first unlatched the door—
We will not make it inaccessible
By thankings in the doorway any more,
But will go onward to extinguish hell
With our fresh souls, our younger hope, and God's
Maturity of purpose. Soon shall we
Be the dead too! and, that our periods
Of life may round themselves to memory,
As smoothly as on our graves the funeral sods,
We must look to it to excel as ye,
And bear our age as far, unlimited
By the last sea-mark! so, to be invoked
By future generations, as the Dead.
VIII.
A great man's voice, the common words he said
Turn oracles,—the meanings which he yoked
Like horses, draw like griffins!—this is true
And acceptable. Also I desire,
