And through good Providence and courage, thou slay him that would have slain thee, Thou losest not a tittle of thy rectitude, having executed sudden justice; Still mayst thou walk among the blessed, though thy hands be red with blood. For thyself, thou art neither worse nor better; but thy fellows should count thee their creditor: Thou hast manfully protected the right, and the right is stronger for thy deed. Also, in the rescuing of innocence, fear not to smite the ravisher; She that lieth in thy bosom, the tender wife of thy affections, Yea, break stones upon the highway, acknowledging the Lord in thy lot, mighty. Thou that despisest the outward forms, beware thou lose not the inward spirit; For they are as words unto ideas, as symbols to things unseen. Keep then the form that is good: retain, and do reverence to example; And in all things observe subordination, for that is the whole duty of man. A horse knoweth his rider, be he confident or timid, And the fierce spirit of Bucephalus stoopeth unto none but Alexander; The tigress roused in the jungle by the prying spaniels of the fowler, Will quail at the eye of man, so he assert his dignity; Nay, the very ships, those giant swans breasting the mighty waters, And yet, in travelling the world, hast thou not often known A gallant host led on to ruin by a feeble Xerxes? Hast thou not often seen the wanton luxury of indolence Sullying with its sleepy mist the tarnished crown of headship ? Alas! for a thousand fathers, whose indulgent sloth Hath emptied the vial of confusion over a thousand homes: Alas! for the palaces and hovels, that might have been nurseries for heaven, By hot intestine broils blighted into schools for hell: None knoweth his place, yet all refuse to serve, None weareth the crown, yet all usurp the sceptre : And perhance some fiercer spirit, of natural nobility of mind, That needed but the kindness of constraint to have grown up great and good, Now, the rich harvest of his heart choked by unweeded tares, All bold to dare and do, unchecked by wholesome fear, A scoffer about bigotry and priestcraft, a rebel against government and God, And the timid Eli of the house, yon humble parish-priest, The mother, heart-stricken years agone, hath dropped into an early grave, A kingdom is a nest of families, and a family a small kingdom; But and if he yieldeth up the reins, it is weak in discordant anarchy, The authorized supremacy of one, the prescriptive subjection of many : Therefore, to this our day, the Rechabite wanteth not a man, (1o) OF REST. (1) In the silent watches of the night, calm night that breedeth thoughts, (*) Then I noted adders in the grass, and pitfalls under the flowers, And chasms yawned among the hills, and the ground was cracked and slippery : But Hope and her brother Fear suffered not a foot to linger; Bright phantoms of false joys beckoned alluringly forward, And ceaselessly, like Lapland swarms, that miserable crowd sped along There saw I, midway in the water, standing a giant fisher, And he held many lines in his hand, and they called him Iron Destiny. So I tracked those subtle chains, and each held one among the multitude: Then I understood what hindered, that they rested not in their path: For the fisher had sport in his fishing, and drew in his lines continually, And the new-born babe, and the aged man, were dragged into that dark river: And he pulled all those myriads along, and none might rest by the way, Till many, for sheer wearinsss, were eager to plunge into the drowning stream. So I knew that valley was Life, and it sloped to the waters of Death. Sabbath, And it seemed they would have told me much, but they might not break that silence; For the law of their being was mystery: they glided on, hushing as they went. Yet further, under the sun, at the roots of purple mountains, And far as the eye could reach, were millions of happy creatures Then the hill whereon I stood split asunder, and a crater yawned at my feet, And I saw below a moving mass of life, like reptiles bred in corruption, So I woke, and I thought upon my dream: for it seemed of wisdom's ministration. What man is he that findeth rest, though he hunt for it year after year? There remaineth a rest for the spirit on the shadowy side of life; Ever, from stage to stage, he travelleth wearily forward, And though he pluck flowers by the way, he may not sleep among the flowers. Mind is the perpetual motion; for it is a running stream From an unfathomable source, the depth of the divine Intelligence: tention. Seekest thou rest, O mortal?-seek it no more on earth, For destiny will not cease from dragging thee through the rough wilderness of life; Seekest thou rest, O immortal?-hope not to find it in Heaven, For sloth yieldeth not happiness; the bliss of a spirit is action. Rest dwelleth only on an island in the midst of the ocean of existence, OF HUMILITY. VICE is grown aweary of her gawds, and donneth russet garments, For Pride hath noted how all admire the fairness of Humility, And to clutch the praise he coveteth, is content to be drest in hair-cloth; And wily Lust tempteth the young heart, that is proof against the bravery of harlots, With timid tears and retiring looks of an artless seeming maid; And Slander, snake-like, creepeth in the dust, thinking to escape recrimination. But the world hath gained somewhat from its years, and is quick to penetrate disguises; |