25. 
’This is the winter of the world;—­and here 3685
We die, even as the winds of Autumn fade,
Expiring in the frore and foggy air. 
Behold!  Spring comes, though we must pass, who made
The promise of its birth,—­even as the shade
Which from our death, as from a mountain, flings 3690
The future, a broad sunrise; thus arrayed
As with the plumes of overshadowing wings,
From its dark gulf of chains, Earth like an eagle springs.

26. 
’O dearest love! we shall be dead and cold
Before this morn may on the world arise; 3695
Wouldst thou the glory of its dawn behold? 
Alas! gaze not on me, but turn thine eyes
On thine own heart—­it is a paradise
Which everlasting Spring has made its own,
And while drear Winter fills the naked skies, 3700
Sweet streams of sunny thought, and flowers fresh-blown,
Are there, and weave their sounds and odours into one.

27. 
’In their own hearts the earnest of the hope
Which made them great, the good will ever find;
And though some envious shade may interlope 3705
Between the effect and it, One comes behind,
Who aye the future to the past will bind—­
Necessity, whose sightless strength for ever
Evil with evil, good with good must wind
In bands of union, which no power may sever:  3710
They must bring forth their kind, and be divided never!

28. 
’The good and mighty of departed ages
Are in their graves, the innocent and free,
Heroes, and Poets, and prevailing Sages,
Who leave the vesture of their majesty 3715
To adorn and clothe this naked world;—­and we
Are like to them—­such perish, but they leave
All hope, or love, or truth, or liberty,
Whose forms their mighty spirits could conceive,
To be a rule and law to ages that survive. 3720

29. 
’So be the turf heaped over our remains
Even in our happy youth, and that strange lot,
Whate’er it be, when in these mingling veins
The blood is still, be ours; let sense and thought
Pass from our being, or be numbered not 3725
Among the things that are; let those who come
Behind, for whom our steadfast will has bought
A calm inheritance, a glorious doom,
Insult with careless tread, our undivided tomb.

30. 
’Our many thoughts and deeds, our life and love, 3730
Our happiness, and all that we have been,
Immortally must live, and burn and move,
When we shall be no more;—­the world has seen
A type of peace; and—­as some most serene
And lovely spot to a poor maniac’s eye, 3735
After long years, some sweet and moving scene
Of youthful hope, returning suddenly,
Quells his long madness—­thus man shall remember thee.