Icarus

The aspirations of the soul are things
     Which buoy us up and bear us to the skies,
     Over the bondage of our clay to rise
And drink the morning at its golden openings.
Alas the fate! the sodden earth-clod clings 
     Havey and damp, and seems the far sun flies
     As we reel back assailed by mocking cries,
As headlong plunge, dragged down with broken wings.
Yet even here is glory and a name,
     To have aspired, and greatly to aspire,
Though fallen, is noble, and a worthy claim
     On far Remembrance and the plausive lyre;
Icarus hurled into the Aegean surge
Leaves it his name to fill an everlasting dirge.