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I.

To tutors now and long-left tasks restored,
Our sea-emboldened, self-reliant Boy
Soon grew enamoured of his new employ.
And many things those tutors never meant
Into a mind of such inquiring bent
His classics and his metaphysics poured.
But most he loved, could ne'er enough adore
The Godlike spirit of that grand Greek lore
That first taught Man his glorious being's height;
Taught him to stand, the Universe before,
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Erect in moral, intellectual might,
And brave, in strength of Soul, the adverse infinite.
How would their strains his kindling bosom warm,
Those daring darling Poets, who enshrined
The freest Spirit in the purest Form,
In matchless Beauty such consummate Mind.
How would he triumph with the Theban Maid
Who, in no armour but instinctive sense,
The panoply of conscious right, arrayed,
Her lofty sentiment her sole defence,
Risked all the murderous rage of tyrant force
To snatch a burial for a brother's corse;
Though all the gods—all worldly wisdom's saws,
All cherished loves and all Convention's laws,
Denounced herself and spurned her holy cause.
Antigone could teach him that the test
Of right and wrong lay in his own free breast;
That right was right, despite high-seated wrong
And throned Authority by Custom strong!
That Man of all external aid bereft,
Had still himself and staunch endurance left;
Could stand above all Circumstance elate
And trust high Nature in the fight with Fate.
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