O ALL ye myriads in the ages dead, Princes and peoples great in power and trust, And great in love, -- all dwindled to fine dust! Must wolfish Time with such as you be fed, That living men awhile may keep ahead Upon the bitter road, where ill and just Hear, as they run, the hollow panting gust From fangs of hunger never surfeited? No! live again, brave world (I would have said), Nor for our vantage in the breach be cast, -- I could have wept for pity of you, dead, But I remembered our own fate instead, -- How, to the age that springs before us fast, We shall become the sacrificial past. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SESTINA: ALTAFORTE by EZRA POUND ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON [APRIL 6, 1862] by KATE BROWNLEE SHERWOOD TO WEBSTER by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE THE HISTORY OF ARCADIUS AND SEPHA: BOOK 1 by WILLIAM BOSWORTH ERE THE GOLDEN BOWL IS BROKEN by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH PARLEYINGS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE: CHRISTOPHER SMART by ROBERT BROWNING |