Page:Poems, now first collected, Stedman, 1897.djvu/152

 "UBI SUNT QUI ANTE NOS?"

READ AT THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL MEETING OF THE CENTURY ASSOCIATION, JANUARY 13, 1897

now are the Others faring? Where sit They all in state?

And is there a token that somewhere, beyond the muffled gate,

The vanished and unreturning, whose names our memories fill,

Are holding their upper conclave and are of the Century still?

Is it all a fancy that somewhere, that somehow, the mindful Dead,

From the first that made his exit to the latest kinsman sped,—

Their vision ourselves unnoting, their shapes by ourselves unseen,—

Have gathered like us, together this night in that strange demesne?

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