Classic Poem

But we are set to strive to make our mark
And scarcely pause to plead for any play
Nor think that any hour of any day
Writes its own record down in chalk or chark,
For all we falsely claim or blindly say,
" I am the Truth, the Life too and the Way. "
It stands, a word to comfort and appal,
A summons grave and sweet, a warning stark.
But death and dread responsibility
I hardly fear tonight, or feel at all:
Watching my fancy gleam, now bright, now dark,
As snapping from the brands a single spark
Splits in a spray of sparkles ere it fall,
And the long flurrying flame that shoots to die...