There are no handles upon a language,
Whereby man take hold of it,
And mark it with sighs for its remembrance,
It is a river, this language,
Once in a thousand years,
Breaking a new course,
Changing its way to the ocean,
It is mountain effluvia,
Moving to valleys,
And from nation to nation,
Crossing borders and mixing,
Languages die like rivers,
Words wrapped round your lips today,
And broken to shape of thought,
Between your teeth and lips speaking,
Now and today,
Shall be faded hieroglyphics,
Ten thousand years from now,
Sing-and singing-remember,
Your song dies and changes,
And is not here to-morrow,
Any more than the wind,
Blowing ten thousand years ago.