Page:In Bohemia (1886).djvu/35

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THE PRICELESS THINGS.


Those are vulgar things we pay for, be they stones for crowns of kings;
While the precious and the peerless are unpriced symbolic things.

Common debts are scored and cancelled, weighed and measured out for gold;
But the debts from men to ages, their account is never told.

Always see, the noblest nations keep their highest prize unknown;
Chæronea's deathless lion frowned above unlettered stone.

Ah, the Greeks knew! Come their victors honored from the sacred games,
Under arches red with roses, flushed to hear their shouted names;