THE GOAL

All your wonderful inventions,

All your houses vast and tall,

All your great gun-fronted vessels,

Every fort and every wall,

With the passing of the ages,

They shall pass and they shall fall.

As you sit among the idols

That your avarice gave birth,

As you count the hoarded treasures

That you think of priceless worth,

Time is digging tombs to hide them

In the bosom of the earth.

There shall come a great convulsion

Or a rushing tidal wave,

Or a sound of mighty thunders

From a subterranean cave,

And a boasting world's possessions

Shall be buried in one grave.

From the Centuries of Silence

We are bringing back again

Buried vase and bust and column

And the gods they worshipped then,

In the strange unmentioned cities

Built by prehistoric men.

Did they steal, and lie, and slaughter?

Did they steep their souls in shame?

Did they sell eternal virtues

Just to win a passing fame?

Did they give the gold of honour

For the tinsel of a name?

We are hurrying all together

Toward the silence and the night;

There is nothing worth the seeking

But the sun-kissed moral height -

There is nothing worth the doing

But the doing of the RIGHT.