A hundred generations have gone into its making, <br />With all their love and tenderness, with all their dreams and tears; <br />Their vanished joy and pleasure, their pain and their heart-breaking, <br />Have colored this rare blossom of the long-unfruitful years. <br /> <br />Their victory and their laughter for this have strong men given, <br />For this have sweet, dead women paid in patience which survives <br />That a great soul might bring the world, as from the gate of heaven, <br />All that was rich and beautiful in those forgotten lives.<br /><br />Lucy Maud Montgomery<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/genius-2/
