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THE MONUMENT outlasting bronze | |
Was promised well by bards of old; | |
The lucid outline of their lay | |
Its sweet precision keeps for aye, | |
Fixed in the ductile language-gold. | 5 |
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But we who work with smaller skill, | |
And less refined material mould, | |
This close conglomerate English speech, | |
Bequest of many tribes, that each | |
Brought here and wrought at from of old, | 10 |
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Residuum rough, eked out by rhyme, | |
Barbarian ornament uncouth, | |
Our hope is less to last through Art | |
Than deeper searching of the heart, | |
Than broader range of uttered truth. | 15 |
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One keen-cut group, one deed or aim | |
Athenian Sophocles could show, | |
And rest content; but Shakespeares stage | |
Must hold the glass to every age, | |
A thousand forms and passions glow | 20 |
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Upon the world-wide canvas. So | |
With larger scope our art we ply; | |
And if the crown be harder won, | |
Diviner rays around it run, | |
With strains of fuller harmony. | 25 |
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