Song of the Broad-Axe - stanza 4

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <h2><SPAN name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></SPAN>SONG OF THE BROAD-AXE</h2> <h4>4</h4> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Muscle and pluck forever!<br/></span> <span class="i0">What invigorates life invigorates death,<br/></span> <span class="i0">And the dead advance as much as the living advance,<br/></span> <span class="i0">And the future is no more uncertain than the present,<br/></span> <span class="i0">For the roughness of the earth and of man encloses as much as the delicatesse of the earth and of man,<br/></span> <span class="i0">And nothing endures but personal qualities.</span></div> </div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">What do you think endures?<br/></span> <span class="i0">Do you think a great city endures?<br/></span> <span class="i0">Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared constitution? or the best built steamships?<br/></span> <span class="i0">Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chef-d'oeuvres of engineering, forts, armaments?</span></div> </div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Away! these are not to be cherish'd for themselves,<br/></span> <span class="i0">They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play for them,<br/></span> <span class="i0">The show passes, all does well enough of course,<br/></span> <span class="i0">All does very well till one flash of defiance.</span></div> </div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">A great city is that which has the greatest men and women,<br/></span> <span class="i0">If it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the whole world.</span></div> </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />