The New Tenants

    The day was here when it was his to know How fared the barriers he had built between His triumph and his enemies unseen, For them to undermine and overthrow²； And it was his no longer to forego The sight of them, insidious³ and serene⁴, Where they were delving⁵ always and had been Left always to be vicious and to grow.

    And there were the new tenants who had come, By doors that were left open unawares, Into his house, and were so much at home There now that he would hardly have to guess, By the slow guile⁶ of their vindictiveness⁷, What ultimate insolence⁸ would soon be theirs. InferentialAlthough I saw before me there the face Of one whom I had honored among men The least, and on regarding him again Would not have had him in another place, He fitted with an unfamiliar⁹ grace The coffin¹⁰ where I could not see him then As I had seen him and appraised¹¹ him when I deemed him unessential to the race.

    For there was more of him than what I saw. And there was on me more than the old awe¹² That is the common genius of the dead. I might as well have heard him： "Never mind； If some of us were not so far behind, The rest of us were not so far ahead."