Page:Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration.djvu/2

 Or reading stars to find inglorious fates,

Can lift our life with wings

Far from Death's idle gulf that for the many waits,

And lengthen out our dates

With that clear fame whose memory sings

In manly hearts to come, and nerves them and dilates:

Nor such thy teaching, Mother of us all!

Not such the trumpet-call

Of thy diviner mood,

That could thy sons entice

From happy homes and toils, the fruitful nest

Of those half-virtues which the world calls best,

Into War's tumult rude;

But rather far that stern device

The sponsors chose that round thy cradle stood

In the dim, unventured wood,

The that lurks beneath

The letter's unprolific sheath,

Life of whate'er makes life worth living,

Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal food,

One heavenly thing whereof earth hath the giving.

Many loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil

Amid the dust of books to find her,

Content at last, for guerdon of their toil,

With the cast mantle she hath left behind her.

Many in sad faith sought for her,

Many with crossed hands sighed for her;

But these, our brothers, fought for her

At life's dear peril wrought for her,

So loved her that they died for her,

Tasting the raptured fleetness

Of her divine completeness:

Their higher instinct knew

Those love her best who to themselves are true,

And what they dare to dream of, dare to do;

They followed her and found her

Where all may hope to find,

Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind,