The old advances and in time outgrows
The laws that in our fathers’ day were best.
And doubtless after us some purer scheme will be
Shaped out by wiser men than we,
Made wiser by the steady growth of truth.
My soul is not a palace of the past,
Where outworn creeds like Rome’s great Senate quake,
Hearing afar the vandals’ trumpet hoarse
That shakes old systems with a thunder fit.
The time is ripe and rotten ripe for change. [Applause.]