To do some little good before I die;

To wake some echoes to a loftier theme;

To spend my life’s last store of industry

On thoughts less vain than Youth’s discordant dream;

To endow the world’s grief with some counter-scheme

Of logical hope which through all time should lighten

The burden of men’s sorrow and redeem

Their faces’ paleness from the tears that whiten;

To take my place in the world’s brotherhood

As one prepared to suffer all its fate;

To do and be undone for sake of good,

And conquer rage by giving love for hate;

That were a noble dream, and so to cease,

Scorned by the proud but with the poor at peace.