But when he once attains the upmost round
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.
... let us not break with him,
For he will never follow anything
That other men begin.
It is often a matter of judgment whether we shall interpret a phrase as momentarily complete or as pointing forward, incomplete. Sometimes either interpretation would be acceptable, but, as a rule, one conveys the author’s intention better than the other. For instance, in the following extract from The American Indian, the author says:
As a race they have withered from the land. Their arrows are broken, their springs have dried up, their cabins are in the dust. Their council-fire has long since gone out on the shore, and their war-cry is fast fading to the untrodden West.