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‘I will have one more grapple with the man
Charles Stuart: whom the boy o’ercame,
The man stands not in awe of. I, perchance,
Am one raised up by the Almighty arm
To witness some great truth to all the world.
Souls destined to o’erleap the vulgar lot,
And mould the world unto the scheme of God,
Have a fore-consciousness of their high doom,
As men are known to shiver at the heart 270
When the cold shadow of some coming ill
Creeps slowly o’er their spirits unawares.
Hath Good less power of prophecy than Ill?
How else could men whom God hath called to sway
Earth’s rudder, and to steer the bark of Truth,
Beating against the tempest tow’rd her port,
Bear all the mean and buzzing grievances,
The petty martyrdoms, wherewith Sin strives
To weary out the tethered hope of Faith?
The sneers, the unrecognizing look of friends, 280
Who worship the dead corpse of old king Custom,
Where it doth lie In state within the Church,
Striving to cover up the mighty ocean
With a man’s palm, and making even the truth
Lie for them, holding up the glass reversed,
To make the hope of man seem farther off?
My God! when I read o’er the bitter lives
Of men whose eager heart’s were quite too great
To beat beneath the cramped mode of the day,
And see them mocked at by the world they love, 290
Haggling with prejudice for pennyworths
Of that reform which their hard toil will make
The common birthright of the age to come,–
When I see this, spite of my faith in God,
I marvel how their hearts bear up so long;
Nor could they but for this same prophecy,
This inward feeling of the glorious end.

‘Deem me not fond; but in my warmer youth,
Ere my heart’s bloom was soiled and brushed away,
I had great dreams of mighty things to come; 300
Of conquest, whether by the sword or pen
I knew not; but some Conquest I would have,
Or else swift death: now wiser grown in years,
I find youth’s dreams are but the flutterings
Of those strong wings whereon the soul shall soar
In after time to win a starry throne;
And so I cherish them, for they were lots,
Which I, a boy, cast in the helm of Fate.
Now will I draw them, since a man’s right hand,
A right hand guided by an earnest soul, 310
With a true instinct, takes the golden prize
From out a thousand blanks. What men call luck
Is the prerogative of valiant souls,
The fealty life pays its rightful kings.
The helm is shaking now, and I will stay
To pluck my lot forth; it were sin to flee!’

So they two turned together; one to die,
Fighting for freedom on the bloody field;
The other, far more happy, to become
A name earth wears forever next her heart; 320
One of the few that have a right to rank
With the true Makers: for his spirit wrought
Order from Chaos; proved that right divine
Dwelt only in the excellence of truth;
And far within old Darkness’ hostile lines
Advanced and pitched the shining tents of Light.
Nor shall the grateful Muse forget to tell,
That–not the least among his many claims
To deathless honor–he was MILTON’S friend,
A man not second among those who lived 330
To show us that the poet’s lyre demands
An arm of tougher sinew than the sword.