Age after age the fruit of knowledge falls <br />To ashes on men’s lips; <br />Love fails, faith sickens, like a dying tree <br />Life sheds its dreams that no new spring recalls; <br />The longed-for ships <br />Come empty home or founder on the deep, <br />And eyes first lose their tears and then their sleep. <br /> <br />So weary a world it lies, forlorn of day, <br />And yet not wholly dark, <br />Since evermore some soul that missed the mark <br />Calls back to those agrope <br />In the mad maze of hope, <br />“Courage, my brothers—I have found the way!” <br /> <br />The day is lost? What then? <br />What though the straggling rear-guard of the fight <br />Be whelmed in fear and night, <br />And the flying scouts proclaim <br />That death has gripped the van— <br />Ever the heart of man <br />Cheers on the hearts of men! <br /> <br />“It hurts not!” dying cried the Roman wife; <br />And one by one <br />The leaders in the strife <br />Fall on the blade of failure and exclaim: <br />“The day is won!”<br /><br />Edith Wharton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/non-dolet-2/
