So the last strongholds fall, the mob sweeps on!
1
The mock and scorn of small mechanic brains,
Soon shall the solemn symbols all be gone,
The vessels hoarding the long human gains,
The stored elixirs out of chaos wrung,
By the great dead who fought and dreamed and sung.
For Man, half salesman grown and half machine,
7
Of Homer's marble speech hath need no more,
He knows not what those mighty accents mean
Caught from the gods along the Attic shore,
Nor of that Roman bronze which Virgil spake
May his shrunk soul the large impression take.
For him enough the language of the mart,
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The speech of hucksters wrangling o'er their trade;
The lexicons of the deep human heart
Were for a mightier breed of manhood made,
Men that lived history for Thucydides,
Or at street corners talked with Socrates.
Yea! it is well—for men so small as we
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Tongues so imperial have too large a style;
What deeds to fill these robes of majesty,
What thoughts have we, that know but to defile
The altars of our fathers, and to break
Perfections Time so long hath toiled to make?
Even the tongues we speak for our concerns,
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The paltry business of our little day,
Too noble are—he knows enough who learns
In "Esperanto" how to spell his way;
What do we with the speech of gods and kings,
Or tender talk of Heliconian springs?