L

53

IFE may be given in many ways, And loyalty to Truth be sealed As bravely in the closet as the field, So bountiful is Fate;

But then to stand beside her

When craven churls deride her,

To front a lie in arms and not to yield-
This shows, methinks, God's plan
And measure of a stalwart man,

Limbed like the old heroic breeds,

Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid earth, Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, Fed from within with all the strength he needs. LOWELL (Commemoration Ode).

54

ARTH cannot show so brave a sight

Es when a single soul does fence

The battery of alluring sense;

And Heaven views it with delight.

Then persevere; for still new charges sound, And if thou overcom'st thou shalt be crowned. MARVELL (Dialogue between the Resolved Soul and Created Pleasure).

Μ

55

EN! whose boast it is that ye

Ma come of fathers brave and free,

If there breathe on earth a slave,
Are ye truly free and brave?

If ye do not feel the chain
When it works a brother's pain,
Are ye not base slaves indeed,
Slaves unworthy to be freed?

Is true Freedom but to break
Fetters for our own dear sake,
And, with leathern hearts, forget
That we owe mankind a debt?
No! true freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear,
And, with heart and hand, to be
Earnest to make others free!

They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;

They are slaves who will not choose

Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,

Rather than in silence shrink

From the truth they needs must think;

They are slaves who dare not be

In the right with two or three.

LOWELL (Stanzas on Freedom).

56

HE timid it concerns to ask their way,

THE

And fear what foe in caves and swamps
can stray;

To make no step until the event is known;
And ills to come, as evils past, bemoan.
Not so the Wise. No coward watch he keeps
To spy what danger on his pathway creeps.
Go where he will, the wise man is at home
His hearth, the earth; his hall, the azure dome.
Where his clear spirit leads him, there his road,
By God's own light illumined and foreshowed.

EMERSON (On Henry Thoreau).

57

WELL for him whose will is strong!

He suffers, but he will not suffer long;

He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong;

For him nor moves the loud world's random mock,
Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound,
Who seems a promontory of rock,

That, compassed round with turbulent sound,
In middle ocean meets the surging shock,
Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crowned.

TENNYSON (Will).