Classic Poem

O men of the wandering sea-borne race,
Your venture was high, but your wars are done,
Ye have rent my veil, ye behold my face;
What is the land that your arms have won?

Scored with the brand of the blinding heat
And the wrath divine, and the sins of man,
And the fateful tramp of the conqueror's feet,
It has suffered all, since the world began.

The forces that fashion, the hands that mould
Are the winds fire-laden, the sky, the rain;
Will the storms abate or the sun grow cold?
They are gods no more, but their spells remain.

For the sun shall scorch and the fierce winds blow,
And the pest strike sudden, and hunger slay;
And if eyes see all that a man shall know,
What is evil or ease for a passing day?

If the lords of our life be pleasure and pain,
And the earth is their kingdom, and none may flee,
Ye may take their wages who wear their chain;
I may serve them never; and sleep is free.

Ye shall float and fade in the world of sense
As the clouds that hover, the rays that gleam:
No hand shows whither, no tongue says whence—
Let me rest nor be troubled, if all is dream.

Let the deeps flow round and the darkness fall
Over the scenes of your glory and strife;
Let the shadows pass from the prison wall
For a moment lit by the lamp of life;

For the stories of men and of days that are gone,
Of towns now dust, of a vanished race,
Are but old names carved on the dungeon stone;
They lived, and laboured, and left their trace.

And the burden of thought and the travail of care
Weigh down the soul in its wandering flight;
The sun burns ever, the plains lie bare;
It is death brings shade, and the dreamless night.