Each phantom with the whimsey to recount
How he on earth was one of Fortune's slaves.
As in one grand kaleidoscope they passed,
I saw all ranks of form and intellect,
And noble men among the meanest classed,
Compelled by sorrow to appear abject:
The scholar with his proud, pale, thoughtful brow,
The poet with his bright but sunken eye;
Artist and statesman—each told why and how
Among the unhonored dead he came to lie.
Strange were the tales these phantom beings told
Of lives worn out in struggles against fate,
Pining for that whose paltry price was gold—
Yet Gold held destiny subordinate;
A proud, stern man, with face of manhood's prime,
Whose hair was silvered in a single night,
Had seen his treasures in one hour of time
Taken forever from his doating sight—
Wife, children, riches—and his heart gave way—
That high, brave heart, that erst had been so strong,
And had endured so much! It could not stay
This last great agony, and broke ere long;
He had been poor in youth, and pace by pace
Had toiled his way along the steep ascent,
Till he had won of men an honored place,
And love and wealth were with his laurels blent.
Oft had his spirit fainted—still he turned
His eye upon the goal he strove to gain,
Till that for which his ardent soul so burned,
And more was won, and yet it was in vain;
And one—a student with a pale, clear face,
Through which the soul within shone like a light,
And on whose brow yet lingered many a trace
