The Poetical Works of George Barlow In Ten [Eleven] Volumes |
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| IX. |
 | X. |
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| XI. |
 | The Poetical Works of George Barlow |  |
29
THE SUNSET-SHIELD
Fear not, my poet brothers,—Beauty guards
With shield of sunset and with waving wings
The self-forgetful soul of him that sings,
And draws a charméd circle round her bards.
Tradition your development retards:
Burst bands of custom, wander forth alone,
Subdue the nations, make the earth a throne,
Shake falsehood as one shakes a house of cards.
With shield of sunset and with waving wings
The self-forgetful soul of him that sings,
And draws a charméd circle round her bards.
Tradition your development retards:
Burst bands of custom, wander forth alone,
Subdue the nations, make the earth a throne,
Shake falsehood as one shakes a house of cards.
Some higher work the world's a right to ask
Than floods of flowery diction, rivers of rhyme:
Expression, after all, is but a mask
Concealing some reality sublime;
Assert your birth-right, bend ye to your task,
Inheritors of history, heirs of time.
Than floods of flowery diction, rivers of rhyme:
Expression, after all, is but a mask
Concealing some reality sublime;
Assert your birth-right, bend ye to your task,
Inheritors of history, heirs of time.
1870.
| The Poetical Works of George Barlow | |