James Russell Lowell - The Street lyrics

They pa** me by like shadows, crowds on crowds, Dim ghosts of men that hover to and fro, Hugging their bodies round them, like thin shrouds Wherein their souls were buried long ago: They trampled on their youth, and faith, and love, They cast their hope of human-kind away, With Heaven's clear messages they madly strove, And conquered,--and their spirits turned to clay. Lo! how they wander round the world, their grave, Whose ever-gaping maw by such is fed, Gibbering at living men, and idly rave, "We, only, truly live, but ye are dead." Alas! poor fools, the anointed eye may trace A dead soul's epitaph in every face!