| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900. |
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| 703. From Generation to Generation |
| | | By William Dean Howells |
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| INNOCENT spirits, bright, immaculate ghosts! | |
| Why throng your heavenly hosts, | |
| As eager for their birth | |
| In this sad home of death, this sorrow-haunted earth? | |
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| Beware! Beware! Content you where you are, | 5 |
| And shun this evil star, | |
| Where we who are doomed to die | |
| Have our brief being, and pass, we know not where or why. | |
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| We have not to consent or to refuse; | |
| It is not ours to choose: | 10 |
| We come because we must, | |
| We know not by what law, if unjust or if just. | |
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| The doom is on us, as it is on you, | |
| That nothing can undo; | |
| And all in vain you warn: | 15 |
| As your fate is to die, our fate is to be born. | |
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