V

Blooms the laurel which belongs To the valiant chief who fights; I see the wreath, I hear the songs Lauding the Eternal Rights, Victors over daily wrongs: Awful victors, they misguide Whom they will destroy, And their coming triumph hide In our downfall, or our joy: They reach no term, they never sleep, In equal strength through space abide; Though, feigning dwarfs, they crouch and creep, The strong they slay, the swift outstride: Fate's grass grows rank in valley clods, And rankly on the castled steep,-- Speak it firmly, these are gods, All are ghosts beside.