When this young Land has reached its wrinkled prime, <br />And we are gone and all our songs are done, <br />And naught is left unchanged beneath the sun, <br />What other singers shall the womb of Time <br />Bring forth to reap the sunny slopes of rhyme? <br />For surely till the thread of life be spun <br />The world shall not lack poets, though but one <br />Make lonely music like a vesper chime <br />Above the heedless turmoil of the street. <br />What new strange voices shall be given to these, <br />What richer accents of melodious breath? <br />Yet shall they, baffled, lie at Nature's feet <br />Searching the volume of her mysteries, <br />And vainly question the fixed eyes of Death.<br /><br />Thomas Bailey Aldrich<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-poets-3/
