The Life of Man Is Never Quite Completed

    The life of man is never quite completed;
    The daring and the chatter will go on:
    But, as an artist feels his power gone,
    These walk the earth and know themselves defeated.

    Some could not bear nor break the young and mourn        for
    The wounded myths that once made nations good,
    Some lost a world they never understood,
    Some saw too clearly all that man was born for.

    Loss is their shadow-wife, Anxiety
    Receives them like a grand hotel; but where
    They may regret they must; their life, to hear

    The call of the forbidden cities, see
    The stranger watch them with a happy stare,
    And Freedom hostile in each home and tree.