 | The various writings of Cornelius Mathews |  |
IX.
THE STATESMAN.
Up to the Capitol who goes, a heart
Should bear, state tyranny may not subdue:
Wakening at dawn to fill its ample part,
It, ever, day by day, grows fresh and new,
Nor sleeps through the mid-watches of the night,
Though there the thankless world has left its smart—
Without some visions, beckoning and bright,
That make him gladly to his bedside start.
Should bear, state tyranny may not subdue:
Wakening at dawn to fill its ample part,
It, ever, day by day, grows fresh and new,
Nor sleeps through the mid-watches of the night,
Though there the thankless world has left its smart—
Without some visions, beckoning and bright,
That make him gladly to his bedside start.
Accursed who on the Mount of Rulers sits
Nor gains some glimpses of a fairer day!
Who knows not there, what there his soul befits,
Thoughts that leap up and kindle far away
The coming time! Who rather dulls the ear
With brawling discord and a cloud of words;
Owning no hopeful object, far or near,
Save what the universal self affords.
Nor gains some glimpses of a fairer day!
Who knows not there, what there his soul befits,
Thoughts that leap up and kindle far away
The coming time! Who rather dulls the ear
With brawling discord and a cloud of words;
Owning no hopeful object, far or near,
Save what the universal self affords.
He that with sway of empire would control
The various millions, parted or amassed,
Should hold in bounteous fee, an ample soul—
Equal the first to know, nor less the last.
At once whose general eye surveys as well
The rank or desert waste—the golden field;
Whose feet the mountain and the valley tread,
Nor ever to the trials of the way will yield.
The various millions, parted or amassed,
Should hold in bounteous fee, an ample soul—
Equal the first to know, nor less the last.
At once whose general eye surveys as well
The rank or desert waste—the golden field;
Whose feet the mountain and the valley tread,
Nor ever to the trials of the way will yield.
Deeper to feel, than quickly to express—
And then alone in the consummate act—
Reaps not the ocean, nor the free air tills,
But keeps within his own peculiar tract:
Confirms the State in all its needful right,
Nor strives to draw within its general bound—
For gain or loss, for glory or distress,
The rich man's hoard, the poor man's patchy ground.
And then alone in the consummate act—
Reaps not the ocean, nor the free air tills,
But keeps within his own peculiar tract:
Confirms the State in all its needful right,
Nor strives to draw within its general bound—
For gain or loss, for glory or distress,
The rich man's hoard, the poor man's patchy ground.
Strip from the trunk that props the empire up,
All weeds, all flowers that hide the simple shaft:
Plain as the heavens and pure as mid-day light
Swell up its ample cope: nor there ingraft
A single leaf nor draw a single line
To daze the eye, to coax the grasper's hand;
Simple it rose—so simple let it rise—
For ever, changeless simple let it stand!
All weeds, all flowers that hide the simple shaft:
Plain as the heavens and pure as mid-day light
Swell up its ample cope: nor there ingraft
A single leaf nor draw a single line
To daze the eye, to coax the grasper's hand;
Simple it rose—so simple let it rise—
For ever, changeless simple let it stand!
| The various writings of Cornelius Mathews | |