Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/201

THE MONUMENT OF GREELEY Well may the brooding Earth retake

The form we knew, to be a part

Of bloom and herbage, fern and brake,

New lives that from her being start.

Naught of the soul shall there remain:

They came on void and darkness solely

Who the veiled Spirit sought in vain

Within the temple's shrine Most Holy.

That, that, has found again the source

From which itself to us was lent:

The Power that, in perpetual course,

Makes of the dust an instrument

Supreme; the universal Soul;

The current infinite and single

Wherein, as ages onward roll,

Life, Thought, and Will forever mingle.

What more is left, to keep our hold

On him who was so true and strong?

This semblance, raised above the mould

With offerings of word and song,

That men may teach, in aftertime,

Their sons how goodness marked the features

Of one whose life was made sublime

By service for his brother creatures.

And last, and lordliest, his fame,—

A station in the sacred line

Of heroes that have left a name

We conjure with,—a place divine,

Since, in the world's eternal plan,

Divinity itself is given,

To him who lives or dies for Man

And looks within his soul for Heaven.

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