43

We have not wings, we cannot soar;
But we have feet to scale & climb
by slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time

The heights by great men reached
and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight
But they, while their companion slept
Were toiling upward in the night

Nor deem the irrevocable past,
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its wrecks, at last
To something nobler we attain.