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| O ye familiar scenes,--ye groves of pine, That once were mine and are no longer mine,-- Thou river, widening through the meadows green To the vast sea, so near and yet unseen,-- Ye halls, in whose seclusion and repose Phantoms of fame, like exhalations, rose And vanished,--we who are about to die Salute you; earth and air and sea and sky, And the Imperial Sun that scatters down His sovereign splendors upon grove and town. Ye do not answer us! ye do not hear! We are forgotten; and in your austere And calm indifference, ye little care Whether we come or go, or whence or where. What passing generations fill these halls, What passing voices echo from these walls, Ye heed not; we are only as the blast, A moment heard, and then forever past. from "Morituri Salutamus" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
| a moment heard, and then forever past |