VII

God lives, and lifts his glorious mornings up

      Before the eyes of men, who wake at last,

And put away the meats they used to sup,

      And on the dry dust of the ground outcast

The dregs remaining of the ancient cup,

      And turn to wakeful prayer and worthy act.

The dead, upon their awful 'vantage ground,—

The sun not in their faces,—shall abstract

No more our strength: we will not be discrowned

      Through treasuring their crowns, nor deign transact

A barter of the present, in a sound,

      For what was counted good in foregone days.

O Dead, ye shall no longer cling to us

      With your stiff hands of desiccating praise,

And hold us backward by the garment thus,

      To stay and laud you in long virelays!

Still, no! we will not be oblivious

      Of our own lives, because ye lived before,

Nor of our acts, because ye acted well,—

      We thank you that ye first unlatched the door—

We will not make it inaccessible

      By thankings in the doorway any more,

But will go onward to extinguish hell

      With our fresh souls, our younger hope, and God's

Maturity of purpose. Soon shall we

      Be the dead too! and, that our periods

Of life may round themselves to memory,

      As smoothly as on our graves the funeral sods,

We must look to it to excel as ye,

      And bear our age as far, unlimited

By the last sea-mark! so, to be invoked

      By future generations, as the Dead.