Non Dolet

by Edith Wharton

　　To ashes on men's lips;

　　Love fails, faith sickens, like a dying tree

　　Life sheds its dreams that no new spring recalls;

　　The longed-for ships

　　Come empty home or founder on the deep,

　　And eyes first lose their tears and then their sleep.

　　So weary a world it lies, forlorn of day,

　　And yet not wholly dark,

　　Since evermore some soul that missed the mark

　　Calls back to those agrope

　　In the mad maze of hope,

　　"Courage, my brothers—I have found the way!"

　　The day is lost? What then?

　　What though the straggling rear-guard of the fight

　　Be whelmed in fear and night,

　　And the flying scouts proclaim

　　That death has gripped the van—

　　Ever the heart of man

　　Cheers on the hearts of men!

　　"It hurts not!" dying cried the Roman wife;

　　And one by one

　　The leaders in the strife

　　Fall on the blade of failure and exclaim:

　　"The day is won!"