It is something to have wept as we have wept,
It is something to have done as we have done,
It is something to have watched when all men slept,
And seen the stars which never see the sun.

It is something to have smelt the mystic rose,
Although it break and leave the thorny rods,
It is something to have hungered once as those
Must hunger who have ate the bread of gods.

To have seen you and your unforgotten face,
Brave as a blast of trumpets for the fray.
Pure as white lilies in a watery space,
It were something, though you went from me to-day.

To have known the things that from the weak are furled,
Perilous ancient passions, strange and high;
It is something to be wiser than the world,
It is something to be older than the sky.

In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts,
And fatted lives that of their sweetness tire,
In a world of flying loves and fading lusts,
It is something to be sure of a desire.

Lo, blessed are our ears for they have heard;
Yea, blessed are our eyes for they have seen:
Let thunder break on man and beast and bird
And the lightning. It is something to have been.

Is it worth while that we jostle a brother, 
Bearing his load on the rough road of life?
Is it worth while that we jeer at each other 
In blackness of heart?—that we war to the knife? 
God pity us all in our pitiful strife.

God pity us all as we jostle each other; 
God pardon us all for the triumphs we feel 
When a fellow goes down 'neath his load on the heather, 
Pierced to the heart: words are keener than steel, 
And mightier far for woe than for weal.

Were it not well, in this brief little journey 
On over the isthmus, down into the tide, 
We give him a fish instead of a serpent, 
Ere folding the hands to be and abide 
Forever and aye in dust at his side?

Look at the roses saluting each other; 
Look at the herds all at peace on the plain— 
Man, and man only, makes war on his brother, 
And dotes in his heart on his peril and pain— 
Shamed by the brutes that go down on the plain.

Is it worth while that we battle to humble 
Some poor fellow down into the dust? 
God pity us all! Time too soon will tumble 
All of us together, like leaves in a gust, 
Humbled, indeed, down into the dust.

Why should we envy a moment of pleasure 
Some poor fellow-mortal has wrung from it all? 
Oh! could you look into his life's broken measure— 
Look at the dregs—at the wormwood and gall— 
Look at his heart hung with crape like a pall;

Look at the skeletons down by his hearthstone; 
Look at his cares in their merciless sway, 
I know you would go and say tenderly, lowly, 
Brother—my brother, for aye and for aye, 
Lo! Lethe is washing the blackness away.