my strain,
But the sad strings complain, 240
And will not please the ear:
I sweep them for a paean, but they wane
Again and yet again
Into a dirge, and die away in pain.
In these brave ranks I only see the gaps, 245
Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps,
Dark to the triumph which they died to gain:
Fitlier may others greet the living,
For me the past is unforgiving;
I with uncovered head 250
Salute the sacred dead,
Who went, and who return not.--Say not so!
'Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay,[8]
But the high faith that failed not by the way;
Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave;[9] 255
No bar of endless night exiles the brave;
And to the saner mind
We rather seem the dead that stayed behind.
Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow!
For never shall their aureoled presence lack: 260
I see them muster in a gleaming row,
With ever-youthful brows that nobler show;
We find in our dull road their shining track;
In every nobler mood
We feel the orient of their spirit glow, 265
Part of our life's unalterable good,
Of all our saintlier aspiration;
They come transfigured back,
Secure from change in their high-hearted ways,
Beautiful evermore, and with the rays 270
Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation!

[Footnote 7: See Shakespeare, _King Henry IV. Pt. I_ Act II Sc. 3. "Out
of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety."]

[Footnote 8: See the _Book of Numbers_, chapter xiii.]

[Footnote 9: Compare Gray's line in _Elegy in a Country Churchyard_.
"The paths of glory lead but to the grave."]

IX.

But is there hope to save
Even this ethereal essence from the grave?
What ever 'scaped Oblivion's subtle wrong
Save a few clarion names, or golden threads of song 275
Before my musing eye
The mighty ones of old sweep by,
Disvoiced now and insubstantial things,
As noisy once as we; poor ghosts of kings,
Shadows of empire wholly gone to dust, 280
And many races, nameless long ago,
To