WHEN that great Kings return to clay, | |
| Or Emperors in their pride, | |
| Grief of a day shall fill a day, | |
| Because its creature died. | |
| But we—we reckon not with those | 5 |
| Whom the mere Fates ordain, | |
| This Power that wrought on us and goes | |
| Back to the Power again. | |
| |
| Dreamer devout, by vision led | |
| Beyond our guess or reach, | 10 |
| The travail of his spirit bred | |
| Cities in place of speech. | |
| So huge the all-mastering thought that drove— | |
| So brief the term allowed— | |
| Nations, not words, he linked to prove | 15 |
| His faith before the crowd. | |
| |
| It is his will that he look forth | |
| Across the world he won— | |
| The granite of the ancient North— | |
| Great spaces washed with sun. | 20 |
| There shall he patient take his seat | |
| (As when the Death he dared), | |
| And there await a people’s feet | |
| In the paths that he prepared. | |
| |
| There, till the vision he foresaw | 25 |
| Splendid and whole arise, | |
| And unimagined Empires draw | |
| To council ’neath his skies, | |
| The immense and brooding Spirit still | |
| Shall quicken and control. | 30 |
| Living he was the land, and dead, | |
| His soul shall be her soul! | |
| |
