Leaders of Men

When they are dead, we heap the laurels high Above them where, indifferent, they lie: We join their deeds to unaccustomed praise, And crown with garlands of immortal bays Whom, living, we but thought to crucify.

As mountains seem less glorious viewed too nigh, So, often, do the great whom we decry Gigantic loom to our astonished gaze— When they are dead;

For, shamed by largeness, littlenesses die; And partisan and narrow hates put by, We shrine our heroes for the future days; And to atone our ignorant delays With fond and emulous devotion try,— When they are dead!