Page:Poems Elgee, 1907.djvu/44

XIV.
How the pallid sons of labour,
 They should toil, and toil to raise,
Till a glory, like to Tabor,
 Once again should meet earth's gaze.
How the poor, no longer keeping
 Count of life alone by groans,
With the strong cry of their weeping,
 Start the angels on their thrones.

XV.
Ah! that vision's bright ideal,
 Must it fade and perish thus?
Must its fall alone be real?
 Are its ruins trod by us?
Ah! they dreamed an Eldorado,
 Given not to mortal sight;
Yet the souls that walk in shadow,
 Still bend forward to its light.

XVI.
Earnest dreamers, sooth we blame not
 If ye failed to reach the goal—
If the glorious Real came not
 At the strong prayer of each soul.
By the path ye've trod to duty,
 Blessings yet to man may flow,
Though the proud and stately beauty
 Of your structure lieth low.

XVII.
Low as that which Salem mourneth,
 On Moriah's holy hill;
While the heathen proudly scorneth,
 Yet the wrecks are glorious still:
Like the seven columns frowning,
 On the desert city down;
Or the seven cedars crowning
 Lofty Lebanon.