ch gives to
resolve the force of destiny, and clothes the soul with the heavenliest
strength and beauty when it stands single and alone, of men abandoned
and almost of God.

There is little danger that too many shall ever hearken to the
invitation from the fair worlds to which all souls belong, and where
alone they can be luminous and free. For centuries, now, what
innumerable voices have pleaded with men to make themselves worthy of
heaven; while they have moved on heedless of the heaven that lies about
us here, placing their hopes and aims in material and perishable
elements, athirst neither for truth, nor beauty, nor aught that is
divinely good! They sleep, they wake, they eat, they drink; they tread
the beaten path with ceaseless iteration, and so they die. If one come
appealing for culture of intellect, not because they who know, are
stronger than the ignorant and make them their servants, but because an
open, free, and flexible mind is good and fair, better than birth,
position, and wealth, they turn away as though he trifled with their
common-sense. Life, they say, is not for knowledge, but knowledge for
life; and they neither truly know, nor live. And if here and there some
nobler soul stand forth, he degrades himself to an aspirant to fame,
forgetting truth and love.

Enough there are on earth who reap and sow,
Enough who give their lives to common gain,
Enough who toil with spade and axe and plane,
Enough who sail the seas where rude winds blow;
Enough who make their life unmeaning show,
Enough who plead in courts, who physic pain;
Enough who follow in the lover's train,
And taste of wedded hearts the bliss and woe.

A few at least may love the poet's song,
May walk with him, their visionary guide,
Far from the crowd, nor do the world a wrong;
Or on his wings through deep blue skies may glide
And float, by light transfused, like clouds along
Above the earth and over oceans wide.

With unresting, wearing thought and labor we are striving to make earth
more habitable. We drag forth from its inner parts whatever treasures
are hidden there; with steam's mighty force we mold brute matter into
every fair and serviceable form; we build great cities, we spread the
fabric of our trade; the engine's iron heart goes throbbing through
tunneled mountains and over storm-swept seas to bear us and our wealth
to all regions of the globe; we talk to one another