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Leaves of Grass :[1891]

Including Sands at Seventy...1st Annex, Good-Bye my Fancy...2d Annex, A Backward Glance o'er Travel'd Roads, and Portrait from Life

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TO THOSE WHO'VE FAIL'D.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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TO THOSE WHO'VE FAIL'D.

To those who've fail'd, in aspiration vast,
To unnam'd soldiers fallen in front on the lead,
To calm, devoted engineers—to over-ardent travelers—to pilots on their ships,
To many a lofty song and picture without recognition—I'd rear a laurel-cover'd monument,
High, high above the rest—To all cut off before their time,
Possess'd by some strange spirit of fire,
Quench'd by an early death.