Volume Ii Part 3 (1/2)

Else better were it in some bower of peace Slothful to swing, contending with the flies.

You point at Wisdom fixed on lofty skies, As mid barbarian hordes a sculptured Greece: She falls. To live and s.h.i.+ne, she grows her fleece, Is shorn, and rubs with follies and with lies.

So following her, your hewing may attain The right to speak unto the mute, and shun That sly temptation of the illumined brain, Deliveries oracular, self-spun.

Who sweats not with the flock will seek in vain To shed the words which are ripe fruit of sun.

THE STATE OF AGE

Rub thou thy battered lamp: nor claim nor beg Honours from aught about thee. Light the young.

Thy frame is as a dusty mantle hung, O grey one! pendant on a loosened peg.

Thou art for this our life an ancient egg, Or a tough bird: thou hast a rudderless tongue, Turning dead trifles, like the c.o.c.k of dung, Which runs, Time's contrast to thy halting leg.

Nature, it is most sure, not thee admires.

But hast thou in thy season set her fires To burn from Self to Spirit through the lash, Honoured the sons of Earth shall hold thee high: Yea, to spread light when thy proud letter I Drops p.r.o.ne and void as any thoughtless dash.

PROGRESS

In Progress you have little faith, say you: Men will maintain dear interests, wreak base hates, By force, and gentle women choose their mates Most amorously from the gilded fighting crew: The human heart Bellona's mad halloo Will ever fire to dicing with the Fates.

'Now at this time,' says History, 'those two States Stood ready their past wrestling to renew.

They sharpened arms and showed them, like the brutes Whose haunches quiver. But a yellow blight Fell on their waxing harvests. They deferred The b.l.o.o.d.y settlement of their disputes Till G.o.d should bless them better.' They did right.

And naming Progress, both shall have the word.

THE WORLD'S ADVANCE

Judge mildly the tasked world; and disincline To brand it, for it bears a heavy pack.

You have perchance observed the inebriate's track At night when he has quitted the inn-sign: He plays diversions on the homeward line, Still that way bent albeit his legs are slack: A hedge may take him, but he turns not back, Nor turns this burdened world, of curving spine.

'Spiral,' the memorable Lady terms Our mind's ascent: our world's advance presents That figure on a flat; the way of worms.

Cherish the promise of its good intents, And warn it, not one instinct to efface Ere Reason ripens for the vacant place.

A CERTAIN PEOPLE

As Puritans they prominently wax, And none more kindly gives and takes hard knocks.

Strong psalmic chanting, like to nasal c.o.c.ks, They join to thunderings of their hearty thwacks.

But naughtiness, with hoggery, not lacks When Peace another door in them unlocks, Where conscience shows the eyeing of an ox Grown dully apprehensive of an Axe.