Canto CXXVI

The love that rose on stronger wings,

      Unpalsied when he met with Death,

      Is comrade of the lesser faith

That sees the course of human things.

No doubt vast eddies in the flood,

      Of onward time shall yet be made.

      And throned races may degrade;

Yet O ye ministers of good,

Wild Hours that fly with Hope and Fear,

      If all your office had to do

      With old results that look like new,

If this were all your mission here,

To draw, to sheathe a useless sword,

      To fool the crowd with glorious lies,

      To cleave a creed in sects and cries,

To change the bearing of a word,

To shift an arbitrary power,

      To cramp the student at his desk,

      To make old baseness picturesque

And tuft with grass a feudal tower;

Why then my scorn might well descend

      On you and yours. I see in part

      That all, as in some piece of art,

Is toil cöoperant to an end.