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THE LADY
Yes, hearts will burn when all the stars are cold;
And Beauty lingers—but her tale is told:
Mankind has left her for a game of toys,
And fleets the golden hour with speed and noise.
THE POET
Think you the human heart no longer feels
Because it loves the swift delight of wheels?
And is not Change our one true guide on earth,
The surest hand that leads us from our birth?
THE LADY
Change were not always loss, if we could keep
Beneath all change a clear and windless deep:
But more and more the tides that through us roll
Disturb the very sea-bed of the soul.
THE POET
The foam of transient passions cannot fret
The sea-bed of the race, profounder yet:
And there, where Greece and her foundations are,
Lies Beauty, built below the tide of war.