James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)

THEY pass by me like shadows, crowds on crowds,

Dim ghosts of men, that hover to and fro,

Hugging their bodies round them like thin shrouds

Wherein their souls were buried long ago;

They trampled on their faith and youth and love—

They cast their hope of human kind away—

With Heaven’s clear messages they madly strove

And conquered,—and their spirits turned to clay;

Lo! how they wander round the world, their grave,

Whose ever-gaping maw by such is fed,

Gibbering at living men, and idly rave

“We only truly live, but ye are dead,”—

Alas, poor fools! the anointed eye may trace

A dead soul’s epitaph in every face.