Where men but a moment before were sitting, Were gone; that a screen of something around me Shut them out of my sight. But the gilded Signs of a hundred beers and whiskeys Flashed from the walls above, and the mirrors And glasses behind the bar were lighted In some strange way, and into my spirit A thousand shafts of terrible fire Burned like death, and I fell. The story Of what came then, you know. But tell me, What does the whole thing mean? What are we, —      Slaves of an awful ignorance? puppets Pulled by a fiend? or gods, without knowing it? Do we shut from ourselves our own salvation, —      Or what do we do! I tell you, Dominie, There are times in the lives of us poor devils When heaven and hell get mixed. Though conscience May come like a whisper of Christ to warn us Away from our sins, it is lost or laughed at, —      And then we fall. And for all who have fallen —      Even for him — I hold no malice, Nor much compassion:  a mightier mercy Than mine must shrive him. —  And I — I am going Into the light? — or into the darkness? Why do I sit through these sickening hours, And hope? Good God! are they hours? — hours? Yes! I am done with days. And to-morrow —      We two may meet! To-morrow! —  To-morrow! . . . 

  

       Walt Whitman     

      The master-songs are ended, and the man That sang them is a name. And so is God A name; and so is love, and life, and death, And everything. But we, who are too blind To read what we have written, or what faith Has written for us, do not understand:      We only blink, and wonder. Last night it was the song that was the man, But now it is the man that is the song. We do not hear him very much to-day:      His piercing and eternal cadence rings Too pure for us — too powerfully pure, Too lovingly triumphant, and too large; But there are some that hear him, and they know That he shall sing to-morrow for all men, And that all time shall listen. The master-songs are ended? Rather say No songs are ended that are ever sung, And that no names are dead names. When we write Men's letters on proud marble or on sand, We write them there forever. 

  

       The Chorus of Old Men in "Aegeus"     

      Ye gods that have a home beyond the world, Ye that have eyes for all man's agony, Ye that have seen this woe that we 

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