They brought me ambrotypes <br />Of the old pioneers to enlarge. <br />And sometimes one sat for me— <br />Some one who was in being <br />When giant hands from the womb of the world <br />Tore the republic. <br />What was it in their eyes?— <br />For I could never fathom <br />That mystical pathos of drooped eyelids, <br />And the serene sorrow of their eyes. <br />It was like a pool of water, <br />Amid oak trees at the edge of a forest, <br />Where the leaves fall, <br />As you hear the crow of a cock <br />From a far-off farm house, seen near the hills <br />Where the third generation lives, and the strong men <br />And the strong women are gone and forgotten. <br />And these grand-children and great grand-children <br />Of the pioneers! <br />Truly did my camera record their faces, too, <br />With so much of the old strength gone, <br />And the old faith gone, <br />And the old mastery of life gone, <br />And the old courage gone, <br />Which labors and loves and suffers and sings <br />Under the sun!<br /><br />Edgar Lee Masters<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/rutherford-mcdowell/
