Classic Poem

II

When I have learned the accents of your speech,
The splendid grief of silence; when I know
Your acrid laughter and your tearless woe,
And learn the shame of life — what you can teach;
When dust returns to dust, and mutely each
Grows haggard thro' the fard — then I shall say,
" Your foolish lips have lied from day to day,
And life has reached the goal that life must reach. "
And then a hush — and then a mighty thought
Shall move upon the fabric of your lives
As thro' a tavern window looms the dawn;
And in your tarnished tinsel, in the scorn
Of guttered candles, all your lives have sought
And you shall fade and finish — Truth survives!