| |
| STAND up—erect! Thou hast the form | |
| And likeness of thy God!—Who more? | |
| A soul as dauntless ’mid the storm | |
| Of daily life, a heart as warm | |
| And pure, as breast e’er wore. | 5 |
| |
| What then?—Thou art as true a man | |
| As moves the human mass among; | |
| As much a part of the great plan | |
| That with creation’s dawn began, | |
| As any of the throng. | 10 |
| |
| Who is thine enemy? The high | |
| In station, or in wealth the chief? | |
| The great, who coldly pass thee by, | |
| With proud step and averted eye? | |
| Nay! nurse not such belief. | 15 |
| |
| If true unto thyself thou wast, | |
| What were the proud one’s scorn to thee? | |
| A feather which thou mightest cast | |
| Aside, as idly as the blast | |
| The light leaf from the tree. | 20 |
| |
| No: uncurbed passions, low desires, | |
| Absence of noble self-respect, | |
| Death, in the breast’s consuming fires, | |
| To that high nature which aspires | |
| Forever, till thus checked;— | 25 |
| |
| These are thine enemies—thy worst: | |
| They chain thee to thy lowly lot; | |
| Thy labor and thy life accursed. | |
| O, stand erect, and from them burst, | |
| And longer suffer not. | 30 |
| |
| Thou art thyself thine enemy: | |
| The great!—what better they than thou? | |
| As theirs is not thy will as free? | |
| Has God with equal favors thee | |
| Neglected to endow? | 35 |
| |
| True, wealth thou hast not—’t is but dust; | |
| Nor place—uncertain as the wind; | |
| But that thou hast, which, with thy crust | |
| And water, may despise the lust | |
| Of both—a noble mind. | 40 |
| |
| With this, and passions under ban, | |
| True faith, and holy trust in God, | |
| Thou art the peer of any man. | |
| Look up then; that thy little span | |
| Of life may be well trod. | 45 |
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