English Poetry III: From Tennyson to Whitman.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 644. Wages |
| | | Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) |
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| GLORY of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song, | |
| Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an endless sea— | |
| Glory of Virtue, to fight, to struggle, to right the wrong— | |
| Nay, but she aim’d not at glory, no lover of glory she; | |
| Give her the glory of going on, and still to be. | 5 |
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| The wages of sin is death: if the wages of Virtue be dust, | |
| Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and the fly? | |
| She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just, | |
| To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky; | |
| Give her the wages of going on, and not to die. | 10 |
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