This day then I understood it all:

Your vital democracy and love of men

And tolerance of life; and how the excess of these

Had wrought your sorrows in the days

When we were so poor, and the small of mind

Spoke of your sins and your connivance

With sinful men. You had lived it down,

Had triumphed over them, and you had grown

Prosperous in the world and had passed

Into an easy mastery of life and beyond the thought