he cause. As a "soldier of the
verse," he himself fights his battles of song in every field. In short
story, in drama, in epic poetry, and above all in lyrics, he creates
work after work. From the _Songs of my Country_, the _Hymn to Athena_,
the _Eyes of my Soul_ and the _Iambs and Anapaests_, he rises gradually
and steadily to the tragic drama of the _Thrice Noble-One_, to the epic
of _The King's Flute_, and to the splendid lyrics of _Life Immovable_
and _The Twelve Words of the Gypsy_ which are his masterpieces.

Nor does he always meet adversity with songs of resignation. At times,
he faces indignantly the hostile world with a satire as stinging as that
of Juvenal. He dares attack with Byronic boldness every idol that his
enemies worship. Often he strikes at the whole people with Archilochean
bitterness and parries blow for blow like Hipponax. At times, he even
seems to approach the rancor of Swift. But then he immediately throws
away his whip and transcends his satire with a loftier thought, a
soothing moral, a note of lyricism, and above all with an unshaken faith
in the new day for which he works. The eighth and ninth poems of the
first book of his "Satires" are good illustrations of this side of his
work:

8

The lazy drones! The frogs! The locusts!
Big men! Politicians! Men who draw
Their learning from the thoughtless journals!

A crowd of stupid, haughty blockheads!
Unworthily, thy name is set
By each as target for blind blows;

But forward still thy steps thou leadest,
Up toward the high bell-tower above,
And climbest: Spaces spread about thee,

And at thy feet, a world of scorners.
Though thou rainest not the godsent manna,
A great Life-giver still, thou tollest

With a new bell a new-born creed.

9

Aye! Break the tyrant's hated chains!
But with their breaking go not drunk!
The world is always slaves and lords:

Though free, chain-bound your life must be;
Other kinds of chains are there
For you: Kneel down! For lo, I bring them!

They fit you, redeemers or redeemed!
Bind with these chains your golden youth;
I bring you cares and sacrifices.

And you shall call them Truth and Beauty,
Modesty, Knowledge, Discipline!
To one command obey last, first,

The world's great laws, and men, and nations.

One of his "Hundred Voices" has something of this satiric note. It is a
blow ag