"O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed, That withers away, to let others succeed; So the multitude comes, even those we behold, To repeat every tale that has often been told. For we are same that our fathers have been; We see the same sights our fathers have seen,-- We drink the same streams, and see the same sun, And run the same course our fathers have run. They loved, but the story we cannot unfold; They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold; They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will come; They rejoiced, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb. They died! Aye, they died. We, things that are now, That work on the turf that lies on their brow And make in their dwellings a transient abode, Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road. Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain Are mingled together in sunshine and rain-- And the smile and the tear, and the song and the dirge Still follow each other like surge upon surge. 'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health, to the paleness of death-- From the gilded saloon, to the bier and the shroud, O why should the spirit of mortal be proud?