winter nights shall lie their covering sole:
Thereon the boy shall stem the ocean wave;
Thereon the youth shall slide with speed of winds
Loud-laughing down the snowy mountain-slope:
To him the Sire shall whisper as he bleeds,
'Remember the revenge? Thy son must prove
More strong, more hard than thou!'
Four hundred years!
Increase is tardy in that icy clime,
For Death is there the awful nurse of Life:
Death rocks the cot. Why meet we there no wolf
Save those huge-limbed? Because weak wolf-cubs die.
'Tis thus with man; 'tis thus with all things strong:--
Rise higher on thy northern hills, my Pine!
That Southern Palm shall dwindle.
House stone-walled--
Ye shall not have it! Temples cedar-roofed--
Ye shall not build them! Where the Temple stands
The City gathers. Cities ye shall spurn:
Live in the woods; live singly, winning each,
Hunter or fisher by blue lakes, his prey:
Abhor the gilded shrine: the God Unknown
In such abides not. On the mountain's top
Great Persia sought Him in her day of strength:
With her ye share the kingly breed of Truths,
The noblest inspirations man hath known,
Or can know--ay, unless the Lord of all
Should come, Man's Teacher. Pray as Persia prayed;
And see ye pray for Vengeance! Leave till then
To Rome her Idol fanes and pilfered Gods.

I see you, O my People, year by year
Strengthened by sufferings; pains that crush the weak,
Your helpers. Men have been that, poison-fed,
Grew poison-proof: on pain and wrong feed ye!
The wild-beast rage against you! frost and fire
Rack you in turn! I'll have no gold among you;
With gold come wants; and wants mean servitude.
Edge, each, his spear with fish-bone or with flint,
Leaning for prop on none. I want no Nations!
A Race I fashion, playing not at States:
I take the race of Man, the breed that lifts
Alone its brow to heaven: I change that race
From clay to stone, from stone to adamant
Through slow abrasion, such as leaves sea-shelves
Lustrous at last and smooth. To _be_, not _have_,
A man to be; no heritage to clasp
Save that which simple manhood, at its will,
Or conquers or re-conquers, held meanwhile
In trust for Virtue; this alone is greatness.
Remain ye Tribes, not Nations; led by