| Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (1869–1948). The Little Book of Modern Verse. 1917. |
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| 89. The Eagle That Is Forgotten |
| | | By Nicholas Vachel Lindsay |
| | | | | (John P. Altgeld) |
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| SLEEP softly … eagle forgotten … under the stone. | |
| Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own. | |
| “We have buried him now,” thought your foes, and in secret rejoiced. | |
| They made a brave show of their mourning, their hatred unvoiced. | |
| They had snarled at you, barked at you, foamed at you, day after day. | 5 |
| Now you were ended. They praised you … and laid you away. | |
| The others, that mourned you in silence and terror and truth, | |
| The widow bereft of her crust, and the boy without youth, | |
| The mocked and the scorned and the wounded, the lame and the poor, | |
| That should have remembered forever,… remember no more. | 10 |
| Where are those lovers of yours, on what name do they call, | |
| The lost, that in armies wept over your funeral pall? | |
| They call on the names of a hundred high-valiant ones, | |
| A hundred white eagles have risen, the sons of your sons. | |
| The zeal in their wings is a zeal that your dreaming began, | 15 |
| The valor that wore out your soul in the service of man. | |
| Sleep softly … eagle forgotten … under the stone. | |
| Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own. | |
| Sleep on, O brave-hearted, O wise man that kindled the flame— | |
| To live in mankind is far more than to live in a name, | 20 |
| To live in mankind, far, far more than to live in a name!— | |
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