Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — A Shadow

I said unto myself, if I were dead,        &nbsp What would befall these children? What would be        &nbsp Their fate, who now are looking up to me        &nbsp For help and furtherance? Their lives, I said, Would be a volume wherein I have read        &nbsp But the first chapters, and no longer see        &nbsp To read the rest of their dear history,        &nbsp So full of beauty and so full of dread. Be comforted; the world is very old,        &nbsp And generations pass, as they have passed,        &nbsp A troop of shadows moving with the sun; Thousands of times has the old tale been told;        &nbsp The world belongs to those who come the last,        &nbsp They will find hope and strength as we have done.