Shifting Scenes and Other Poems By J. Stanyan Bigg |
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 | Shifting Scenes and Other Poems |  |
IV.
A wintry path, a future thick with gloom,Solid as adamant, before him lay,
Through which the poet cleft his lonely way,
'Mid menace and reproach and muttering doom,
Into the dawning of that better day
Which now has settled down upon his tomb.
For nature hath a Spartan mother's heart,
And, to prepare her noblest for their part
In the stern strife and struggle, she ordains
Rude tasks, hard fare, and bitter cups of pains—
Knowing the heroic stature is built higher
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Kingliest and grandest when his forehead glows
Beneath that burning zone—the martyr's crown of fire.
| Shifting Scenes and Other Poems | |