He roves unhurt the burning ways Hid from men of Northern brain, For freedom he will strike and strive, III In an age of fops and toys, Forsake their comrades gay And quit proud homes and youthful dames For famine, toil and fray? Yet on the nimble air benign Speed nimbler messages, That waft the breath of grace divine To hearts in sloth and ease. So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can. IV O, WELL for the fortunate soul Yet happier he whose inward sight, But best befriended of the God He who, in evil times, Warned by an inward voice, Heeds not the darkness and the dread, Biding by his rule and choice, Feeling only the fiery thread Leading over heroic ground, Walled with mortal terror round, To the aim which him allures, And the sweet heaven his deed secures. Peril around, all else appalling, Cannon in front and leaden rain Him duty through the clarion calling Stainless soldier on the walls, Knowing this, and knows no more,— Whoever fights, whoever falls, Justice conquers evermore, Justice after as before, And he who battles on her side, God, though he were ten times slain, Victor over death and pain. V BLOOMS the laurel which belongs And their coming triumph hide They reach no term, they never sleep, And rankly on the castled steep, – IX LOVE AND THOUGHT Two well-assorted travellers use They know one only mortal grief When, by false companions crossed, The pilgrims have each other lost. UNA ROVING, roving, as it seems, In the homestead, homely thought, At my work I ramble not; If from home chance draw me wide, Half-seen Una sits beside. In my house and garden-plot, At home a deeper thought may light But if upon the seas I sail, So the gentle poet's name To foreign parts is blown by fame; Seek him in his native town, He is hidden and unknown. |