Since I rose out of child-oblivionI have walked in a world of many dreams,And noble souls beside the shining streamsOf fancy have with beckonings led me on.
Their faces oft, mayhap, I could not see,Only their waving hands and noble forms.Sometimes there sprang between quick-gathered storms,But always they came back again to me.
Women with smiling eyes and star-spun hairSpake gentle things, bade me look back to viewThe deeds of the great souls who climbed the stair
Immortal, and for whom God's manna grew:Dante, Anacreon, Euripides,And all who set rich wine upon the lees.
Men of brave stature came and placed their handsUpon my head, and, lifting shining swords,Drew through the air signs mightier than words,And vanished in the sun upon the sands.
Glimpses I caught of faces that have comeThrough crowding ages; whisperings of songs;And prayers for the redress of human wrongsFrom voices that upon the earth are dumb.
They were but shadows, but they lent me joy;They gave me reverence for all who paceThe world with hands raised, evil to destroy,
Who live but for the honour of their race.They taught me to strike at no idol raised,Worshipped a space, then left to be dispraised.
Stedfastness, shall we find it, then, at all?Is it that as the winds blow north and south,So must be praises from the loud world's mouth,Which on its heroes in their glory fall?
Because the voice grows stiller, or the armNo longer can beat evils back; becauseThe shoulders sink beneath new-rising cause,And the fine thought has lost its moving charm;
Because of these shall puny sages shakeTheir heads, and haste to mock the failing one,Who in his strength could make the nations quake;
Prophet like Daniel, King like Solomon!In this full time we have seen mockers runAbout the throne of such as Tennyson.
Who saith thy hand is weak, King Tennyson?Who crieth, See, the monarch is grown old,His sceptre falls? Oh, carpers rude and bold,You who have fed upon the gracious benison
Scattered unstinted by him, do you nowDispraise the sweet-strung harp, grown tremulous'Neath fingers overworn for all of us?You cannot tear the laurels from his brow.
He lives above your idle vaunts and fears,Enthroned where all master souls stand upIn their high place, and fill the golden cup,
God-blest for kings, with wine of endless years,And greet him one with them. O brotherhoodOf envious dullards, ye are wroth with good.
THE ANOINTED ONESWhy, let them rail! God's full anointed onesHave heard the world exclaim, "We know you not."They who by their souls' travailing have broughtUs nearer to the wonder of the suns.
Yet, who can stay the passage of the stars?Who can prevail against the thunder-sound?The wire that flashes lightning to the groundDiverts, but not its potency debars.
So, men may strike quick stabs at Caesar's worth,—They only make his life an endless force,'Scaped from its penthouse, flashing through the earth,
And 'whelming those who railed about his Gorse.Men's moods disturb not those born truly great:They know their end; they can afford to wait.