Half of my life is gone, and I have left

The years slipped from me and not fulfilled

The aspiration of my youth, to build

Some tower of song with lofty parapet.

The shades of night were falling fast,

As through an Alpine village passed

A youth, who bore, mid snow and ice,

A banner with a strange device,

Excelsior!


His brow was sad; his eye beneath

Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,

And like a silver clarion rung

The accents of that unknown tongue,

Excelsior!

As I came to the edge of the woods,

Thrush music - hark!

Now if it was dusk outside,

Inside it was dark.


Too dark in the woods for a bird

By sleight of wing

To better it perch for the night,

Though it still could sing.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I couldn't travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent to the undergrowth;


Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that, the passing there

Had worn then really about the same,

We never know how high we are

Till we are called to rise

And then if we are true to plan

Our statures touch the skies -


The Heroism we recite

Would be a normal thing

Did not ourselves the Cubits warp

For fear to be a King -

I died for Beauty - but was scarce

Adjusted in the Tomb

When One who died for Truth was lain

In an adjoining Room -

Farewell! If ever fondest prayer
For other’s weal avail’d on high,
Mine will not all be lost in air,
But waft thy name beyond the sky.
’T were vain to speak, to weep, to sigh:
Oh! More than tears of blood can tell,
When wrung from guilt’s expiring eye,
Are in that word – Farewell! – farewell!

And let thy gentle fingers fling
Its melting murmur o’er mine ear.
If in this heart a hope be dear,
That sound shall charm it forth again:
If in these eyes there lurk a tear,

And let thy gentle fingers fling
Its melting murmur o’er mine ear.
If in this heart a hope be dear,
That sound shall charm it forth again:
If in these eyes there lurk a tear,