A hundred generations have gone into its making, With all their love and tenderness, with all their dreams and tears; Their vanished joy and pleasure, their pain and their heart-breaking, Have colored this rare blossom of the long-unfruitful years. Their victory and their laughter for this have strong men given, For this have sweet, dead women paid in patience which survives That a great soul might bring the world, as from the gate of heaven, All that was rich and beautiful in those forgotten lives.