r,
The fruit without the flower!
And pray'd and wrestled to charm good from ill;
Waking perchance, or not, in death,--to find
Man fights a losing fight who fights mankind!

And as who in the Theban avenue,
Sphinx ranged by Sphinx, goes awestruck, nor may read
That ancient awful creed
Closed in their granite calm:--so dim the clue,
So tangled, tracking through
That labyrinthine soul which, day by day
Changing, yet kept one long imperious way:
Strong in his weakness; confident, yet forlorn;
Waning and waxing; diamond-keen, or dull,
As that star Wonderful,
Mira, for ever, dying and reborn:--
Blissful or baleful, yet a Power throughout,
Throned in dim altitude o'er the common rout.

Alas, great Chief! The pity of it!--For he
Lay on his unlamented bier; his life
Wreck'd on that futile strife
To wed things alien by heaven's decree,
Sword-sway with liberty:--
Coercing, not protecting;--for the Cause
Smiting with iron heel on England's laws:
--Intolerant tolerance! Soul that could not trust
Its finer instincts; self-compell'd to run
The blood-path once begun,
And murder mercy with a sad 'I must!'
Great lion-heart by guile and coarseness marr'd;
By his own heat a hero warp'd and scarr'd.

Despot despite himself!--And when the cry
Moan'd up from England, dungeon'd in that drear
Sectarian atmosphere,
With glory he gilt her chains; in Spanish sky
Flaunting the Red Cross high;--
Wars, just or unjust, ill or well design'd,
Urged with the will that masters weak mankind.
--God's hammer Thou!--not hero!--Forged to break
The land,--salve wounds with wounds, heal force by force;
Sword-surgeon keen and coarse:--
To all who worship power for power's own sake,--
Strength for itself,--Success, the vulgar test,--
Fit idol of bent knee, and servile breast!

--O in the party plaudits of the crowd
Glorious, if this be glory!--o'er that shout
A small still voice breathes out
With subtle sweetness silencing the loud
Hoarse vaunting of the proud,--
A song of exaltation for the vale,
And how the mountain from his height shall fail!
How God's true heroes, since this earth began,
Go sackcloth-clad through scourge and sword and scorn,
Crown'd with the bleeding thorn,
Down-trampled by man's heel as foes to man,
And whispering _Eli_, _Eli_! as they die,--
Martyrs of truth and Saint Humility.

These conquer in their fall: Persuasion flies
Wing'd, from their grave: The hearts of men are turn'd
To worship what they burn'd:
Ownin