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III.

IMPATIENCE AND REPROOF.

YES, I have felt a weariness of soul,
A shaking of my loveful faith in man,
Jostling with souls that ne'er beyond life's span
Have glimpsed, to whom this empty earth is goal
And starting-place, and death the dreadful whole;
But as, within the parlour's glare, at night,
Amid loud laugh, and converse vain and light,
Sudden without is heard the thunder's roll,
Deep-toned and infinite, with sad reproof, -
So, when my love and faith in man are shaken,
Great, inborn thoughts, that will not keep aloof,
Within my soul like those far thunders, waken,
Growing and growing, till its depths are dinned
With the sad sense of having deadly sinned.

IV.

REFORMERS.

IF

ye have not the one great lesson learned, Which grows in leaves, tides in the mighty sea,

And in the stars eternally hath burned,

That only full obedience is free,

If ye in pride your true birthright have spurned,

Or, for a mess of pottage, beggarly

Have sold it, how, in Truth's name, have ye earned
The holy right to fight for Liberty?

Be free, and then our God will give a sword
Wherefor Orion's belt were not too bright;

There shall be power in your lightest word
To make weak Falsehood, pierced with arrowy light,

Writhe, dying of her own most foul disease,

Within her churches and her palaces!

V.

THE FIERY TRIAL.

THE hungry flame hath never yet been hot
To him who won his name and crown of fire;
But it doth ask a stronger soul and higher

To bear, not longing for a prouder lot,

Those martyrdoms whereof the world knows not,Hope sneaped with frosty scorn, the faith of youth Wasted in seeming vain defence of Truth, Greatness o'ertopped with baseness, and fame got Too late: Yet this most bitter task was meant

For those right worthy in such cause to plead,
And therefore God sent poets, men content
To live in humbleness and body's need,

If they may tread the path where Jesus went,
And sow one grain of Love's eternal seed.

VI.

GREAT Truths are portions of the soul of man;
Great souls are portions of Eternity;

Each drop of blood, that e'er through true heart ran

With lofty message, ran for thee and me;
For God's law, since the starry song began,

Hath been, and still forevermore must be,
That every deed which shall outlast Time's span
Must goad the soul to be erect and free;

Slave is no word of deathless lineage sprung,

Too many noble souls have thought and died,
Too many mighty poets lived and sung,

And our good Saxon, from lips purified

With martyr-fire, throughout the world hath rung Too long to have God's holy cause denied.

VII.

I ASK not for those thoughts, that sudden leap
From being's sea, like the isle-seeming Kraken,

With whose great rise the ocean all is shaken
And a heart-tremble quivers through the deep;

Give me that growth which some perchance deem sleep,
Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems uprise,

Which, by the toil of gathering energies,
Their upward way into clear sunshine keep,

Until, by Heaven's sweetest influences,

Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of green

Into a pleasant island in the seas,

Where, mid tall palms, the cane-roofed home is seen, And wearied men shall sit at sunset's hour,

Hearing the leaves and loving God's dear power.

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