Oh yes, I know what thou would’st say:
“Thou bits’t a stiff and rough-back mare,
Unblest, unbroke to right obey,
Lest as she catch the trumpet’s flare.”
But there again thy false friends spoke—
Each fisty Brave that wearies Time,
Who ’ld headlong rush the brazen yoke,
Than share a pace, so all may climb.
More apt to speed with reckless spur
Thy nicer o’er thy nobler star
Than bring to eye what tho’ it blur,
Yet, warning, sheens the misty Far.
Oh, yes, I know, as world-walks shift,
There is sore push for forward seats:
We quake at taunts from ride-hard Thrift,
Then late her pace with churlish heats—
And wear this mask before our hearts,
This paltry shift of truckling breed,
That veering Trade or waning marts—
All drift that swerves with human need—
May tide with looks the franker Light,
With crafty lead, its artless youth,
While Just, a bawd to brazen Right,
New bastards bear the groaning Truth.
Suppose we take a backward look,
Past years as yet scarce out o’ moulds:
You, from your near-illumined Book,
I—whence no home-trick holds.
In damning truth, a proper pry,
Since at its head War whets his sword,
While Justice puts her ægis by,
And eats his brag and bully’s word—
A look as far as when befell,
What glamored fierce the bridging sea,
Each flary crest at push to tell
How the white stones shone in Kimberley—
And dimmed your faith and glossed the pledge,
And juggled Right with wheedling Wrong;
Gave Cant new stand—this privilege:
To rest all cause on proof of Strong.