 | Firdausi in Exile and Other Poems |  |
211
THE TWOFOLD CORD.
Singly we fight against enormous odds,—Dulness, and Cowardice, and Fate, and Chance,
And the wild bowman, purblind Ignorance,
And Heaven with all its lazy brood of gods;
How, then, above the congregated clods,
Can one man rise, and out of clay advance,
Alone, against the sleepless countenance
Of that huge Argus-host that never nods?
So must we fall upon the fields of life,
And bleed, and die? Nay, rather let us twain,
Marching abreast, against that army move,
Each harnessing the other for the strife,—
You with my will for helmet, and my brain
For sword, while I for buckler bear your love.
| Firdausi in Exile and Other Poems | |