I said unto myself, if I were dead,
       &nbsp What would befall these children? What would be
       &nbsp Their fate, who now are looking up to me
       &nbsp For help and furtherance? Their lives, I said,
Would be a volume wherein I have read
       &nbsp But the first chapters, and no longer see
       &nbsp To read the rest of their dear history,
       &nbsp So full of beauty and so full of dread.
Be comforted; the world is very old,
       &nbsp And generations pass, as they have passed,
       &nbsp A troop of shadows moving with the sun;
Thousands of times has the old tale been told;
       &nbsp The world belongs to those who come the last,
       &nbsp They will find hope and strength as we have done.