THE INHERITOR
Look you, ye line of men and women reaching backBehind my shoulders into Life’s lost dawn—Ye square-jawed, low-browed, fierce-eyed fighting-man;Ye fawning slave, cringing before the whip;Ye strong-souled prophet of diviner things;Ye praying saint, ye sensuous, sin-steeped fool;Ye seer, love driven, paying drop by dropThy own blood down to buy thy brother’s need;Ye sleek and shifty plotter, cunning-lippedYe pale ascetic, ye the loose-tongued bawd;Ye weak, and tender, loving, scorning, madWith glutted pride—abased in misery;Ye that have measured all the pendulumOf human passion, chance, and hope, and pain—I bid ye halt; I am the crucible,My will the furnace fire; fused here in meYour motley ore shall take what shape I choose,To serve what end I order and command.I’ll make of ye my weapon and my tool,My sword and plowshare. Ye shall hold or break,Strike or be idle, at my word. In my handYe shall be gathered as a missile fitAnd hurled subservient to seek my goal.Look in my eyes and know I fear ye not;Because ye were I am—and rule ye now.I will not go your road nor seek your end;I will not pray your prayer nor sing your song;Ye shall not sear me with the sullen heatOf your spent passions. My lips shall never writheWith bitter pleading for your old desires.Ye shall not shake my soul with your lost fears,Nor grip my heart with dead regret and pain.I am your master; if ye live againYe take life from my hand at my own terms.I will bind up the fire that flared in youTo use diverse, and make of it a torchClear-flamed and strong to light the road I choose.Your wrongs shall set me free from kindred wrong;Your labor and your loss shall be the stepsBeneath my feet on which I stand to rise.Your hopes undone shall wing my hope for flight;I will take up the broken dreams that fellFrom your spent grasp and weld them into one—A deathless vision of futurity.O ye dead hearts that ached; dead hands that clinchedIn fear or fury; dead lips that lied or loved;Dead souls that grovelled or aspired as ye could—Ye rule me not—I am the master here.For my swift hour ye serve me as I will—Till from forgotten dust I serve the men that come.