Chapter I: AM not humble; I was shown my place,

Clad in such robes as Nature had at hand; Took what she gave, not chose; I know no shame, No fear for being simply what I am. I am not proud, I hold my every breath At Nature's mercy. I am as a babe Borne in a giant's arms, he knows not where; Each several heart-beat, counted like the coin A miser reckons, is a special gift As from an unseen hand; if that withhold Its bounty for a moment, I am left A clod upon the earth to which I fall.

Something I find in me that well might claim The love of beings in a sphere above This doubtful twilight world of right and wrong; Something that shows me of the self-same clay That creeps or swims or flies in humblest form. Had I been asked, before I left my bed Of shapeless dust, what clothing I would wear, I would have said, More angel and less worm; But for their sake who are even such as I, Of the same mingled blood, I would not choose To hate that meaner portion of myself Which makes me brother to the least of men.

I dare not be a coward with my lips Who dare to question all things in my soul; Some men may find their wisdom on their knees, Some prone and grovelling in the dust like slaves; Let the meek glowworm glisten in the dew; I ask to lift my taper to the sky As they who hold their lamps above their heads, Trusting the larger currents up aloft, Rather than crossing eddies round their breast, Threatening with every puff the flickering blaze.

My life shall be a challenge, not a truce! This is my homage to the mightier powers, To ask my boldest question, undismayed By muttered threats that some hysteric sense Of wrong or insult will convulse the throne Where wisdom reigns supreme; and if I err, They all must err who have to feel their way As bats that fly at noon; for what are we But creatures of the night, dragged forth by day, Who needs must stumble, and with stammering steps Spell out their paths in syllables of pain?

Thou wilt not hold in scorn the child who dares Look up to Thee, the Father,--dares to ask More than thy wisdom answers. From thy hand The worlds were cast; yet every leaflet claims From that same hand its little shining sphere Of star-lit dew; thine image, the great sun, Girt with his mantle of tempestuous flame, Glares in mid-heaven; but to his noon-tide blaze The slender violet lifts its lidless eye, And from his splendor steals its fairest hue, Its sweetest perfume from his scorching fire.

VII.

WORSHIP

FROM my lone turret as I look around O'er the green meadows to the ring of blue, From slope, from summit, and from half-hid vale The sky is stabbed with dagger-pointed spires, Their gilded symbols whirling in the wind, Their brazen tongues proclaiming to the world, "Here truth is sold, the only genuine ware; See that it has our trade-mark! You will buy Poison instead of food across the way, The lies of -----" this or that, each several name The standard's blazon and the battle-cry Of some true-gospel faction, and again The token of the Beast to all beside. And grouped round each I see a huddling crowd Alike in all things save the words they use; In love, in longing, hate and fear the same.

Whom do we trust and serve? We speak of one And bow to many; Athens still would find The shrines of all she worshipped safe within Our tall barbarian temples, and the thrones That crowned Olympus mighty as of old. The god of music rules the Sabbath choir; The lyric muse must leave the sacred nine To help us please the dilettante's ear; Plutus limps homeward with us, as we leave The portals of the temple where we knelt And listened while the god of eloquence (Hermes of ancient days, but now disguised In sable vestments) with that other god Somnus, the son of Erebus and Nox, Fights in unequal contest for our souls; The dreadful sovereign of the under world Still shakes his sceptre at us, and we hear The baying of the triple-throated hound; Eros is young as ever, and as fair The lovely Goddess born of ocean's foam.

These be thy gods, O Israel! Who is he, The one ye name and tell us that ye serve, Whom ye would call me from my lonely tower To worship with the many-headed throng? Is it the God that walked in Eden's grove In the cool hour to seek our guilty sire? The God who dealt with Abraham as the sons Of that old patriarch deal with other men? The jealous God of Moses, one who feels An image as an insult, and is wroth With him who made it and his child unborn? The God who plagued his people for the sin Of their adulterous king, beloved of him,-- The same who offers to a chosen few The right to praise him in eternal song While a vast shrieking world of endless woe Blends its dread chorus with their rapturous hymn? Is this the God ye mean, or is it he Who heeds the sparrow's fall, whose loving heart Is as the pitying father's to his child, Whose lesson to his children is "Forgive," Whose plea for all, "They know not what they do"?

VIII.

MANHOOD