Have not old scholars, centuries ago
Caressed you in the hollow of their hand,
The while with quiet, kindly eyes they scanned
Your pages, yellowed now, then white as snow?
A voice there is, cries through your every word,
Of him, that after greatest glory came
Down the grey road to darkness and to tears;
A voice like far seas in still valleys heard,
Crying of love and death and hope and fame
That change not with the changing of the years.