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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


IN MEMORIAM by WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD

First Line: THE GATES OF TIME SWING TO: OUR WISEST HEAD
Last Line: WITH THE ETERNAL ANYWHERE AT HOME.
Subject(s): DEATH; MEMORY; DEAD, THE;

The gates of time swing to: Our wisest head,
Our soundest heart, our loftiest soul is dead.
But death like this, crowning a long success,
Gives exaltation to our helplessness,
Repeating, louder than all vain lament,
'Gainst death itself the one great argument --
Even this: A man so disciplined in truth,
In freedom, labor, courtesy, and ruth,
So disciplined, amid earth's age-old wars,
To see even here the light of all the stars,
Must be, wherever God will have him come,
With the eternal anywhere at home.



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