The People's Response to Heroism

Our hearts are set on pleasure and on gain.
Fine clothes, fair houses, more and daintier bread;
We have no strivings, and no hunger-pain
For spiritual food; our souls are dead.
So judged I till the day when news was rife
Of fire besieging scholars and their dames,
And bravely one gave up her own fair life
In saving the most helpless from the flames.
Then when I heard the instantaneous cheer
That broke with sobbing undertones from all
The multitude, and watched them drawing near,
Stricken and mute, around her funeral pall
In grief and exultation, I confest
My judgment erred,--we know and love the best.