“What Power is that which daily heaves
O’er earth’s dark verge the rising sun,
As large, the Druid, Alph, believes,
As Tork or Maugerton?
“A woman once, in youthful flower,
An infant laid upon my knee:
What was it shook my heart that hour?
I live—Where now is he?
“What thing is youth, which speeds so fast?
What thing is life, which lags so long?
Trapped, trapped we are by age at last,
In a net of fraud and wrong!
“I cheated am by Eld—or cheat—
Heart-young as leaves in sun that bask:
Is that fresh heart a counterfeit,
Or this gray shape a mask?
“Some say ‘tis folly to be moved.
‘The dog, he dieth—why not thou?’
They lie! We loved! The ill reproved!—
Is Oscar nothing now?
“O Patrick of the crosier staff,
The wondrous Book, the anthems slow!
If thou the riddle know’st but half,
Help those who nothing know!
“Who made the worlds? the Soul? Man’s race?
The man that knoweth, he is Man!
I, once a prince, will serve in place
Clansman of that man’s clan!”
AFFIRMATIONS.
“Instead of considering the physical condition of a nation determining its moral character, we must always regard the moral as determining, as well as moulding and modifying, the physical.”