University of Virginia Library

Be brave, O man, and face your fate,
For death is your divorceless mate,
And all the creeds that claim to save
Your soul beyond the hungry grave
Are sieves that stoop their leaking sides
In thankless though mysterious tides.
The God they name as mercy's might
May live in music, flowers and light,
But if at all his kingship be,
Night, pest, fire, earthquake still are he.
The path you tread, from birth to bier,
Through meadowy calms may slope and veer,
Blessed amply, for a fleeting while,
By destiny's effulgent smile,
Yet rest you sure that ere it cease
Dread storm will trench upon its peace.
For ages of desire and prayer;
Ages when faith defied despair;
Ages of bigotry so crude
Swine were its fit similitude;
Ages that history's worst gloom dims,
When Christ and crime were synonyms;
Ages when freedom's huge form waked,
While churches rocked, while priestcraft quaked,
While Valkyr reason caught the brand
Of justice in its virgin hand—
Nay, all that variant search has taught
Alike by suffering and by thought—
All tells one tale, through records vast:
Life means mere mockery, first and last.

And yet be brave to face your fate,
O man, howe'er with massive weight
Far worse than captive brutes may know,
The doom of living crush you low.
Think, though your bondage seem austere,
What brother bondsmen you may cheer,
And how the balm of love's glad breath
May almost pluck the sting from death.
Mark, too, that though their term endures
But briefly, glorious joys are yours—
The joys of lovers, parents, kin;
Of arts wide heaven to wander in;
Of friendships rare; of potions pure
At lofty fonts of literature;
Nor less than these, of Nature's far
And bounteous boons, from leaf to star;—
Yet still those joys' more splendid span
Of mercy and help to fellow-man!

So, nerved by stoic patience, dare
The glacial glances of despair;
And though life turn you worn and wan,
Die bravely, with your harness on!

Ah, courage, courage, faltering souls!
Perchance to paradisiac goals
The race moves; and if this be true,
Each individual deed ye do
Fraternity's diviner way,
Will speed that large millennial day
When men shall walk, bright-browed and grand,
Our beauteous planet's wrong-cursed land!