28.10.2007, 09:32
PERISHED IDEALS.
PASSING through life, we hold dead memories
Of aspirations which we breathe no more :
The names of masters whom we did adore
Abide with us, and at some chance may rise
And flame before us, bright as heretofore.
The transient joy we feel : but what the woe,
If that which wakened should requench the glow,
Being not what it was, but in the throng
Of dead things to be numbered now, for spent,
Save for our own heart's chance-awakened core,
Its old dominion ? Thus, in Dante's song,
Pale Statius meeting Virgil would have bent
To embrace his feet : ' Nay, brother,' Virgil said,
'Thou art a shadow, and thou seest a shade.'
PASSING through life, we hold dead memories
Of aspirations which we breathe no more :
The names of masters whom we did adore
Abide with us, and at some chance may rise
And flame before us, bright as heretofore.
The transient joy we feel : but what the woe,
If that which wakened should requench the glow,
Being not what it was, but in the throng
Of dead things to be numbered now, for spent,
Save for our own heart's chance-awakened core,
Its old dominion ? Thus, in Dante's song,
Pale Statius meeting Virgil would have bent
To embrace his feet : ' Nay, brother,' Virgil said,
'Thou art a shadow, and thou seest a shade.'