Sleep, weary, while the vessel drifts unhelmed;
Here see in triumph rise the hero from the dust!
All ye who fight forlorn
'Gainst fate and failure; ye who proudly cope
With evil high enthroned; all ye who scorn
Life from Dishonor's hand, here take new heart of hope.
Here know how Victory borrows
For the brave soul a front as of disaster,
And from the bannered East what glorious morrows
For all the blackness of the night speed surer, faster.
Know by this pillared sign
For what brief while the powers of earth and hell
Can war against the spirit of truth divine,
Or can against the heroic heart of man prevail.
FAME
Fame is an honest thing,
It is deceivèd not;
It passes by the palace gates
Where the crowned usurper waits,
Enters the peasant-poet's cot
And cries: "Thou art the king!"
A MONUMENT BY SAINT-GAUDENS
This is not Death, nor Sorrow, nor sad Hope;
Nor Rest that follows strife. But, O, more dread!
'T is Life, for all its agony serene;
Immortal, and unmournful, and content.
