History's pages but record
One death grapple in the darkness
Twixt old systems and the word.
Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne;
But that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim Unknown
Standeth God within the shadow.
Keeping watch above his own."

--

"Pledge me round, I bid you declare,
All good fellows whose beards are gray,
Did not the fairest of the fair
Common grow and wearisome, ere
Ever a month had passed away?
The reddest lips that ever have kissed,
The brightest eyes that ever have shone
May pray and whisper and we not list
Or look away and never be missed
Ere yet ever a month is gone.
Gillian's dead. God rest her bier!
How I loved her twenty years syne!
Marian's married and I sit here
Alone and merry at forty year,
Dipping my nose in the Gascon wine."

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