Quicker to know Truth’s shining scalpel’s best
And use it bravely. No blot can be here!
Have you thought where ’tis set, this great love-dower?
There! pendulous ’twixt sacrilege and shame,
Uncertain, floating, impotent to bring
A permanence. O! would ours were the power
God-like to make, create a soul, a name,
And touch it whitely with Life’s deathless wing!
XVII
You’ve heard how after some great victory