As he foresaw how all things false should crumble Before the free, uplifted soul of man : And, when he was made full to overflowing With all the loveliness of heaven and earth, Out rushed his song, like molten iron glowing, To show God sitting by the humblest hearth. With calmest courage he was ever ready To teach that action was the truth of thought, And, with strong arm and purpose firm and steady, An anchor for the drifting world he wrought. Sodid he make the meanest man partaker Of all his brother-godsunto him gave; All souls did reverence him and name him Maker, And when he died heaped temples on his grave. And still his deathless words of light are swimming Serene throughout the great deep infinite Of human soul, unwaning and undim And thou in larger measure dost inherit What made thy great forerunners free and wise. Sit thou enthroned where the Poet's mountain Above the thunder lifts its silent peak, And roll thy songs down like a gathering fountain, They all may drink and find the rest they seek. Sing! there shall silence grow in earth and heaven, A silence of deep awe and wondering; For, listening gladly, bend the angels, even, To hear a mortal like an angel sing. III. Among the toil-worn poor my soul is seeking For one to bring the Maker's name to light, To bethe voice ofthat almighty speaking Which every age demands to do it right. Proprieties our silken bards environ; He who would be the tongue of this wide land Must string his harp with chords of sturdy iron And strike it with a toil-imbrowned hand; One who hath dwelt with Nature well attended, Who hath learnt wisdom from her mystic books, Whose soul with all her countless lives hath blended, So that all beauty awes us in his looks; Who not with body's waste his soul hath pampered, Who as the clear northwestern wind is free, Who walks with Form's observances unhampered, And follows the One Will obediently; Whose eyes, like windows on a breezy summit, Control a lovely prospect every way; Who doth not sound God's sea with earthly plummet, And find a bottom still of worthless clay; Who heeds not how the lower guş working, Knowing that one sure wind blews on above, And sees, beneath the foulest faces lurking, One God-built shrine of reverence and love; Who sees all stars that wheel their shining marches Around the centre fixed of Destiny, Where the encircling soul terene o'erarches The moving globe of bei g like a sky; Who feels that God and Heaven's great deeps are nearer Him to whose heart his fellow-man is nigh, Who doth not hold his soul's own freedom dearer Than that of all is brethren, low or high; Who to the Rigl. can feel himself the truer For being gently patient with the wrong, Who sees a brother in the evildoer, And finds in Love the heart's-blood of his song;-. This, this is he for whom the world is waiting Tosing the beatings ofits mighty heart, Too long hath it been patient with the grating Of scrannel-pipes, and heard it misnained Art. To him the smiling soul of man shall listen Laying awhile its crown of thorns And once again in every eye shall glisten Heaving and swelling with a melody Learntofthesky, the river, and the ocean And all the pure, majestic things that be. Awake, then, thou! we pine for thy great presence To make us feel the soul once more sublime, We are of far too infinite an essence Torestcontented with the lies of Time |