Library of the best American literature / Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers

by Unknown

Service of elder gods than theirs

Which they knew not; the epic strain

Wherein dead peoples lived again!

A long, unbroken line is ours;

It has outlived whole lines of kings,

Seen mighty empires rise and fall,

And nations pass away like flowers—

Ruin and darkness cover all!

Nothing withstands the stress and strain,

The endless ebb and flow of things,