Classic Poem

Age after age the fruit of knowledge falls
To ashes on men's lips;
Love fails, faith sickens, like a dying tree
Life sheds its dreams that no new spring recalls;
The longed-for ships
Come empty home or founder on the deep,
And eyes first lose their tears and then their sleep.

So weary a world it lies, forlorn of day,
And yet not wholly dark,
Since evermore some soul that missed the mark
Calls back to those agrope
In the mad maze of hope,
" Courage, my brothers — I have found the way! "

The day is lost? What then?
What though the straggling rear-guard of the fight
Be whelmed in fear and night,
And the flying scouts proclaim
That death has gripped the van —
Ever the heart of man
Cheers on the hearts of men!

" It hurts not! " dying cried the Roman wife;
And one by one
The leaders in the strife
Fall on the blade of failure and exclaim:
" The day is won! "