“Ere as fiends, below, join in the flout,
Match their sad spirits, hopelessly compare
Who takes the crown for vileness there,
Hang shameful heads, as Infamy points out,
This imp, cross of Greed and lewd Complot,
His human sires monstrously begot,
Whose unclean hand foul-featured Fame,
Young, timid traits of Peace that grew,
And as from some struggling dawn, glad-messaged, flew
With this—that God to man, howso He came,
Mote ne’er fulfill His sacred call,
Ere wisdomed lift, while sink each thrall,
That passioned slaves, lets taskman Time
Exact to a jot what brags his lease,
And Breath blind-pays for his appease:—
Ere lift, willed forth this dauntless rhyme—
“Spite bonds that cling, nor seem to bate,
Some Free may war gainst him and Fate.”
Wage hard from lips of thirsting Truth
To dash this rank-envenomed Cup,
Adulterous Policy holdeth up,
Pledged cunning deep with serpent sooth—
“That the lie which in the Weak be breach of trust,
In the Strong, may hollow drape and play the Just.”
Usurp and steal in that fair shape,
For fellowship with him the roysterer, Sword,
Shut out her cheer, the gentle Word,
Profane her wreath, its laurel ape;
Steel twice the heart, glass dark this law:
“There be no Truth: one bitter blank the Heavens go.”
At this—much like some sudden storm, that for ’s ease,
At his mad pleasure, whelmed the skies,
Whose purpose carried, all his wild mood dies,
His course accounted, and his wake the peace:
So happy sank—fast curtained now, each ghost-film laid—
From sight and sound, that threefold Shade.
And thus my Dream, past link or bound
Of yon close web which nets all Thought,
To final plat its loomwork wrought;
Its crowning braid—the instant tint, the fervent ground—
What deep worked in some veiled hand,
And bade both woof and pattern stand.
And, safe-keep it so, thou justest God!
Deny it not its lease of wear,
Spite what coarse thread of Earth it bear,
All warp that fames the needy sod!
But, suffered, let its touch unfold
Some seed of Truth’s anumb with cold.
Th’ impeach, the taunt—account them not,
But as they still prevail with tardy man,
And, differing, derogate Thy vast of plan,
Would bettering eke its bountied. What—
All strange which holds, past Thought, that waits,
The shrouded edicts of unmeasured Fates!
Profess it Thine its core o’ grace—
What strove to bare the covered fault,
The tort, whose gross, to top assault,
Would brazen mask its borrowed face,
Derive intent, refer its course
To Thine clear will and prompting source.