And standard-bearer of the turbulent, leading on the sons of Belial,

Such an one is king of that small state, head-tyrant of the thirty,

Brandishing the torch of discord in his village-home: And the timid Eli of the house, yon humble parish-priest, Liveth in shame and sorrow, fearing his own handywork; The mother, heartstricken years agone, hath dropped into an early grave;

The silent sisters long to leave a home they cannot love; The brothers, casting off restraint, follow their wayward

wills;

And the chance-guest, early departing, blesseth his kind

stars,

That o'er his humbler home broods no domestic curse.

Yet is that curse the fruit; wouldest thou the root of the

evil?

A kindness-most unkind, that hath always spared the

rod;

A weak and numbing indecision in the mind that should

be master;

A foolish love, pregnant of hate, that never frowned on

sin;

A moral cowardice of heart, that never dared command.

A kingdom is a nest of families, and a family a small

kingdom;

And the government of whole or part differeth in no

thing but extent.

The house, where the master ruleth, is strong in united

subjection,

And the only commandment with promise, being honoured, is a blessing to that house :

But and if he yieldeth up the reins, it is weak in discordant anarchy,

And the bonds of love and union melt away, as ropes of

sand.

The realm, that is ruled with vigour, lacketh neither peace

nor glory,

It dreadeth not foes from without, nor the sons of riot from within:

But the meanness of temporizing fear robbeth a kingdom of its honour,

And the weakness of indulgent sloth ravageth its bowels with discord.

The best of human governments is the patriarchal rule; The authorized supremacy of one, the prescriptive subjection of many :

Therefore, the children of the east have thriven from age

to age,

Obeying, even as a god, the royal father of Cathay :

Therefore, to this our day, the Rechabite wanteth not a man,(10)

But they stand before the Lord, forsaking not the mandate of their sire:

Therefore shall Magog among nations arise from his

northern lair,

And rend, in the fury of his power, the insurgent world

beneath him:

For the thunderbolt of concentrated strength can be

hurled by the will of one,

While the dissipated forces of many are harmless as summer lightning.

OF REST.

In the silent watches of the night, calm night that breedeth thoughts,

When the task-weary mind disporteth in the careless play-hours of sleep,

I dreamed; and behold, a valley, green and sunny and

well-watered,

And thousands moving across it, thousands and tens of thousands:

And though many seemed faint and toil-worn, and

stumbled often, and fell,

Yet moved they on unresting, as the ever-flowing cataract. Then I noted adders in the grass, and pitfalls under the

flowers,

And chasms yawned among the hills, and the ground was cracked and slippery :

But Hope and her brother Fear suffered not a foot to

linger;

Bright phantoms of false joys beckoned alluringly for

ward,

While yelling grisly shapes of dread came hunting on

behind :

And ceaselessly, like Lapland swarms, that miserable crowd sped along

To the mist-involved banks of a dark and sullen river. There saw I, midway in the water, standing a giant fisher, And he held many lines in his hand, and they called him Iron Destiny.

So I tracked those subtle chains, and each held one among the multitude;

Then I understood what hindered, that they rested not in their path:

For the fisher had sport in his fishing, and drew in his lines continually,

And the new-born babe, and the aged man, were dragged into that dark river:

And he pulled all those myriads along, and none might rest by the way,

Till many, for sheer weariness, were eager to plunge into the drowning stream.

So I knew that valley was Life, and it sloped to the waters of Death.

But far on the thither side spread out a calm and silent

shore,