through the midnight sky
     Here glows the God of Battles; this recalls
     The Lord of Ocean, and yon far-off sphere
     The Sire of Him who gave his ancient name
     To the dim planet with the wondrous rings;
     Here flames the Queen of Beauty’s silver lamp,
     And there the moon-girt orb of mighty Jove;
     But this, unseen through all earth’s aeons past,
     A youth who watched beneath the western star
     Sought in the darkness, found, and showed to men;
     Linked with his name thenceforth and evermore! 
     So shall that name be syllabled anew
     In all the tongues of all the tribes of men: 
     I that have been through immemorial years
     Dust in the dust of my forgotten time
     Shall live in accents shaped of blood-warm breath,
     Yea, rise in mortal semblance, newly born
     In shining stone, in undecaying bronze,
     And stand on high, and look serenely down
     On the new race that calls the earth its own.

     Is this a cloud, that, blown athwart my soul,
     Wears a false seeming of the pearly stain
     Where worlds beyond the world their mingling rays
     Blend in soft white,—­a cloud that, born of earth,
     Would cheat the soul that looks for light from heaven? 
     Must every coral-insect leave his sign
     On each poor grain he lent to build the reef,
     As Babel’s builders stamped their sunburnt clay,
     Or deem his patient service all in vain? 
     What if another sit beneath the shade
     Of the broad elm I planted by the way,
    —­What if another heed the beacon light
     I set upon the rock that wrecked my keel,
     Have I not done my task and served my kind? 
     Nay, rather act thy part, unnamed, unknown,
     And let Fame blow her trumpet through the world
     With noisy wind to swell a fool’s renown,
     Joined with some truth be stumbled blindly o’er,
     Or coupled with some single shining deed
     That in the great account of all his days
     Will stand alone upon the bankrupt sheet
     His pitying angel shows the clerk of Heaven. 
     The noblest service comes from nameless hands,
     And the best servant does his work unseen. 
     Who found the seeds of fire and made them shoot,
     Fed by his breath, in buds and flowers of flame? 
     Who forged in roaring flames the ponderous stone,
     And shaped the moulded metal to his need? 
     Who gave the dragging car its rolling wheel,
     And tamed the steed that whirls its circling round? 
     All these have left their work and not their names,
     Why should I murmur at a fate like theirs? 
     This is the heavenly light; the pearly stain
     Was but a wind-cloud drifting oer the stars!

VI