And with them passed their guardian household gods,
And faithful wisdom of their ancestors,
And the seed sown in mother fields, and gathered,
A fruitful harvest in their happier years.
And, 'companying the order of their steps
Upon the way, they sung the choruses
And sacred burdens of their country's songs,
And, sitting down by hospitable gates,
They told the histories of their far-off cities.
And sometimes in the lonely darknesses
Upon the ambiguous way they found a light,--
The deathless lamp of some great truth, that Heaven
Sent in compassionate answer to their prayers.
But not to all was given it to endure
That ceaseless pilgrimage, and not on all
Did the heavens smile perennity of life
Revirginate with never-ceasing change;
And when it had completed the great work
Which God had destined for its race to do,
Sometimes a weary people laid them down
To rest them, like a weary man, and left
Their nude bones in a vale of expiation,
And passed away as utterly forever
As mist that snows itself into the sea.
The poet views this growth of nations from youth to decrepitude, and,
coming back at last to himself and to his own laud and time, breaks
forth into a lament of grave and touching beauty:
Muse of an aged people, in the eve
Of fading civilization, I was born
Of kindred that have greatly expiated
And greatly wept.
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