Sonnets

                                   I.
Our fancies oft, cool judgment do outrun 
     And paint ourselves beyond our strength and scope.
     O'er-rated still by still deceiving hope, 
Deeds great in project are but feebly done, 
And the one thought we most have ventured on 
     Dies unembodied. Yet we darkly grope
By the din light exhaled from history's pages, 
     Amid the dust, the ruins and the waste 
Of buried states and half-forgotten ages, 
     To learn if there be something unerased
Among the records of their Bards and Sages 
     To light the future. Still, though fondly clai’d 
Good flies, Hope lures, Life's better light is lost, 
And all our visions fade like bubbles tempest-tost.

                                   II.
Live, and live now: there are enough to turn 
     Our thoughts, and the small strength God gives upon,
     Battles to fight, and conquests to be won 
Here, and to-day. Then why should we dis-urn 
The ashes of Old Empires, save to learn
     Their weakness and the rocks they splintered on? 
We ARE; and what avails it that Greece, Tyre, 
     Rome, Carthage, Thebes, and all crushed Empires were,
Save that they teach us, we too shall expire?
     Each day does more; it tells that as we are 
We shall not be, yet keeping the soul's fire 
     Unquenched, shall, Sunlike live. Our strength to dare
To do, and suffer, let us seek at home, 
And the Soul's shrine shall need no fire from Greece or Rome.