Page:A midsummer holiday and other poems (IA midsummerholiday00swin).pdf/147

 Such hurt as scorn for scorn's sake may forgive. But now, when death and fame have set one seal On tombs whereat Love, Grief, and Glory kneel, Men sift all secrets, in their critic sieve, Of graves wherein the dust of death might shrink To know what tongues defile the dead man's name With loathsome love, and praise that stings like shame. Rest once was theirs, who had crossed the mortal brink: No rest, no reverence now: dull fools undress Death's holiest shrine, life's veriest nakedness.