'When the lamp is shattered.
The light in the dust lies dead--
When the cloud is scattered
The rainbow's glory is shed.
When the lute is broken,
Sweet tones are remembered not...'
Yet out of a thousand fragments this memory must be created anew in a
form that will outlast the years, for it was precious. It was something
that would vindicate an epoch against the sickening adulation of the
hero-makers and against the charge of spiritual sterility; a light in
whose gleam the bewildering non-achievements of the present age, the art
which seems not even to desire to be art, the faith which seems not to
desire to be faith, have substance and meaning. It was shot through and
through by an impulse of paradox, an unconscious straining after the
impossible, gathered into two or three tremulous years which passed too
swiftly to achieve their own expression. Now, what remains of youth is
cynical, is successful, publicly exploits itself. It was not cynical
then.
Elements of the influence that was are remembered only if they lasted
long enough to receive a name.
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