 | Poems and dramas of George Cabot Lodge |  |
96
XXIII
AUX MODERNES
II
When I have learned the accents of your speech,The splendid grief of silence; when I know
Your acrid laughter and your tearless woe,
And learn the shame of life—what you can teach;
When dust returns to dust, and mutely each
Grows haggard thro' the fard—then I shall say,
“Your foolish lips have lied from day to day,
And life has reached the goal that life must reach.”
And then a hush—and then a mighty thought
Shall move upon the fabric of your lives
As thro' a tavern window looms the dawn;
And in your tarnished tinsel, in the scorn
Of guttered candles, all your lives have sought
And you shall fade and finish—Truth survives!
| Poems and dramas of George Cabot Lodge | |