I wonder if there still remain
Some echoes from the songs of old;
Or what the measure of the strain
The future shall unfold?
The voice that breathed across the years,
And came, and went, and passed the bar,
And sang the battle song of tears,
Sounds small, and faint, and far;
And men have found another chord,
An offspring, not of heart, but head;
And gold is God, and lust is Lord,
And Love lies stricken dead!
Ah, me! the race goes blindly on
And leaves the old familiar ways;
And still, earth-weighted, flowers the dawn
To still ignoble days;