"O MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE"

Longum illud tempus, quum non ero, magis me movet, quam hoc exiguum. Cicero, ad Att., xii. 18.

O MAY I join the choir invisible

Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence: live

In pulses stirr'd to generosity,

In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night
like stars,

And with their mild persistence urge man's search

To vaster issues.

So to live is heaven: To make undying music in the world, Breathing as beauteous order that controls With growing sway the growing life of

man.

So we inherit that sweet purity

For which we struggled, fail'd, and agoniz'd

With widening retrospect that bred despair.
Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,
A vicious parent shaming still its child,
Poor anxious penitence, is quick dissolv'd;
Its discords, quench'd by meeting har
monies,

Die in the large and charitable air.
And all our rarer, better, truer self,
That sobb'd religiously in yearning song,
That watch'd to ease the burthen of the
world,

Laboriously tracing what must be,
And what may yet be better,

saw within

A worthier image for the sanctuary,
And shap'd it forth before the multitude,
Divinely human, raising worship so

To higher reverence more mix'd with love,

That better self shall live till human Time

Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky Be gather'd like a scroll within the tomb Unread forever.

This is life to come, Which martyr'd men have made more glorious