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| LOVE thou thy land, with love far-brought | |
| From out the storied past, and used | |
| Within the present, but transfused | |
| Thro’ future time by power of thought; | |
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| True love turn’d round on fixed poles, | 5 |
| Love, that endures not sordid ends, | |
| For English natures, freemen, friends, | |
| Thy brothers, and immortal souls. | |
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| But pamper not a hasty time, | |
| Nor feed with crude imaginings | 10 |
| The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings | |
| That every sophister can lime. | |
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| Deliver not the tasks of might | |
| To weakness, neither hide the ray | |
| From those, not blind, who wait for day, | 15 |
| Tho’ sitting girt with doubtful light. | |
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| Make knowledge circle with the winds; | |
| But let her herald, Reverence, fly | |
| Before her to whatever sky | |
| Bear seed of men and growth of minds. | 20 |
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| Watch what main-currents draw the years: | |
| Cut Prejudice against the grain. | |
| But gentle words are always gain; | |
| Regard the weakness of thy peers. | |
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| Nor toil for title, place, or touch | 25 |
| Of pension, neither count on praise | |
| It grows to guerdon after-days. | |
| Nor deal in watch-words overmuch; | |
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| Not clinging to some ancient saw, | |
| Not master’d by some modern term, | 30 |
| Not swift nor slow to change, but firm; | |
| And in its season bring the law, | |
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| That from Discussion’s lip may fall | |
| With Life that, working strongly, binds— | |
| Set in all lights by many minds, | 35 |
| To close the interests of all. | |
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| For Nature also, cold and warm, | |
| And moist and dry, devising long, | |
| Thro’ many agents making strong, | |
| Matures the individual form. | 40 |
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| Meet is it changes should control | |
| Our being, lest we rust in ease. | |
| We all are changed by still degrees, | |
| All but the basis of the soul. | |
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| So let the change which comes be free | 45 |
| To ingroove itself with that which flies, | |
| And work, a joint of state, that plies | |
| Its office, moved with sympathy. | |
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| A saying hard to shape in act; | |
| For all the past of Time reveals | 50 |
| A bridal dawn of thunder-peals, | |
| Wherever Thought hath wedded Fact. | |
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| Even now we hear with inward strife | |
| A motion toiling in the gloom— | |
| The Spirit of the years to come | 55 |
| Yearning to mix himself with Life. | |
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| A slow-develop’d strength awaits | |
| Completion in a painful school; | |
| Phantoms of other forms of rule, | |
| New Majesties of mighty States— | 60 |
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| The warders of the growing hour, | |
| But vague in vapor, hard to mark; | |
| And round them sea and air are dark | |
| With great contrivances of Power. | |
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| Of many changes, aptly join’d, | 65 |
| Is bodied forth the second whole. | |
| Regard gradation, lest the soul | |
| Of Discord race the rising wind; | |
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| A wind to puff your idol-fires, | |
| And heap their ashes on the head; | 70 |
| To shame the boast so often made, | |
| That we are wiser than our sires. | |
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| O, yet, if Nature’s evil star | |
| Drive men in manhood, as in youth, | |
| To follow flying steps of Truth | 75 |
| Across the brazen bridge of war— | |
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| If New and Old, disastrous feud, | |
| Must ever shock, like armed foes, | |
| And this be true, till Time shall close | |
| That Principles are rain’d in blood; | 80 |
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| Not yet the wise of heart would cease | |
| To hold his hope thro’ shame and guilt, | |
| But with his hand against the hilt, | |
| Would pace the troubled land, like Peace; | |
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| Not less, tho’ dogs of Faction bay, | 85 |
| Would serve his kind in deed and word, | |
| Certain, if knowledge bring the sword, | |
| That knowledge takes the sword away— | |
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| Would love the gleams of love that broke | |
| From either side, nor veil his eyes; | 90 |
| And if some dreadful need should rise | |
| Would strike, and firmly, and one stroke. | |
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| To-morrow yet would reap to-day, | |
| As we bear blossom of the dead; | |
| Earn well the thrifty months, nor wed | 95 |
| Raw Haste, half-sister to Delay. | |
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