No
doubt vast eddies in the flood
Of onward time shall yet be made,
And throned races may degrade;
Yet
O ye mysteries of good,
Wild
Hours that fly with Hope and Fear,
If all your office had to do
With old results that look like new;
If
this were all your mission here,
To
draw, to sheathe a useless sword,
To fool the crowd with glorious lies,
To cleave a creed in sects and cries,
To
change the bearing of a word,
To
shift an arbitrary power,
To cramp the student at his desk,
To make old bareness picturesque
And
tuft with grass a feudal tower;
Why
then my scorn might well descend
On you and yours. I see in part
That all, as in some piece of art,
Is
toil coöperant to an end.