Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word;[29]
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
40Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great,
Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate,
But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din,
List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,—
45"They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin."
[29] "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of the giant brood,
Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who have drenched the earth with blood,
Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our purer day,
Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his miserable prey;—
50Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless children play?[30]
Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified,
55And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.
Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes,—they were souls that stood alone,
While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone,
Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline
To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine,
60By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.
[30] For the full story of Cyclops, which runs in suggestive phrase through these five lines, see the ninth book of the Odyssey. The translation by G.H. Palmer will be found especially satisfactory.
By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track,
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back,
And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned
One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet-hearts hath burned[31]
65Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven upturned.