“The Earth must richer sap secrete,
(Could ye in time but know it!)
Must juice concrete with fiercer heat,
Ere she can make her poet;
Long generations go and come,
At last she bears a singer,
For ages dumb, of senses numb
The compensation-bringer!”
XVIII.
“Her cheaper broods in palaces
She raises under glasses,
But souls like these, heav’n’s hostages,
Spring shelterless as grasses:
They share Earth’s blessing and her bane,
The common sun and shower;
What makes your pain to them is gain,
Your weakness is their power.
XIX.
“These larger hearts must feel the rolls
Of stormier-waved temptation;
These star-wide souls between their poles
Bear zones of tropic passion.
He loved much!—that is gospel good,
Howe’er the text you handle;
From common wood the cross was hewed,
By love turned priceless sandal.
XX.
“If scant his service at the kirk,
He paters heard and aves
From choirs that lurk in hedge and birk,
From blackbird and from mavis;
The cowering mouse, poor unroofed thing,
In him found Mercy’s angel;
The daisy’s ring brought every spring
To him Love’s fresh evangel!
XXI.
“Not he the threatening texts who deals
Is highest ’mong the preachers,
But he who feels the woes and weals
Of all God’s wandering creatures.
He doth good work whose heart can find
The spirit ’neath the letter;
Who makes his kind of happier mind,
Leaves wiser men and better.