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| THE MONUMENT outlasting bronze | |
| Was promised well by bards of old; | |
| The lucid outline of their lay | |
| Its sweet precision keeps for aye, | |
| Fixed in the ductile language-gold. | 5 |
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| But we who work with smaller skill, | |
| And less refined material mould,— | |
| This close conglomerate English speech, | |
| Bequest of many tribes, that each | |
| Brought here and wrought at from of old, | 10 |
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| Residuum rough, eked out by rhyme, | |
| Barbarian ornament uncouth,— | |
| Our hope is less to last through Art | |
| Than deeper searching of the heart, | |
| Than broader range of uttered truth. | 15 |
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| One keen-cut group, one deed or aim | |
| Athenian Sophocles could show, | |
| And rest content; but Shakespeare’s stage | |
| Must hold the glass to every age,— | |
| A thousand forms and passions glow | 20 |
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| Upon the world-wide canvas. So | |
| With larger scope our art we ply; | |
| And if the crown be harder won, | |
| Diviner rays around it run, | |
| With strains of fuller harmony. | 25 |
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