And list, and their high matters strive to scan
The seekers after God, and lovers of man,
Sitting together in amity on a hill,
The Saint of Visions from Greek Patmos come--
Aurelius, lordly, calm-eyed, as of will
Austere, yet having rue on lost, lost Rome,
And with them One who drank a fateful bowl,
And to the unknown God trusted his soul.
The mitred Cranmer pitied even there
(But could it be?) for that false hand which signed
O, all pathetic--no. But it might bear
To soothe him marks of fire--and gladsome kind
The man, as all of joy him well beseemed
Who 'lighted on a certain place and dreamed.'
And fair with the meaning of life their divine brows,
The daughters of well-doing famed in song;
But what! could old-world love for child, for spouse,
For land, content through lapsing eons long?
Oh for a watchword strong to bridge the deep
And satisfy of fulness after sleep.
What know we? Whispers fall, '_And the last first,
And the first last._' The child before the king?
The slave before that man a master erst?
The woman before her lord? Shall glory fling
The rolls aside--time raze out triumphs past?
They sigh, '_And the last first, and the first last.
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