Was I, the world arraigned,

Were they, my soul disdained,

Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!

Now, who shall arbitrate ?

Ten men love what I hate,

Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;

Ten, who in ears and eyes

Match me: we all surmise,

They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe?

Not on the vulgar mass

Called "work" must sentence pass,

Things done, that took the eye and had the price;
O'er which, from level stand,

The low world laid its hand,

Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

But all the world's coarse thumb

And finger failed to plumb,

So passed in making up the main account;

All instincts immature,

All purposes unsure,

That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount;

Thoughts hardly to be packed

Into a narrow act,

Fancies that broke through language and escaped;

All I could never be,

All men ignored in me,

This I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

Ay, note that potter's wheel,
That metaphor! and feel

Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,
Thou, to whom fools propound,

When the wine makes its round,

"Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!"

Fool! all that is, at all,

Lasts ever, past recall;

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:
What entered into thee,

That was, is, and shall be:

Time's wheel runs back or stops; Potter and clay endure.

He fixed thee 'mid this dance

Of plastic circumstance,

This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:
Machinery just meant

To give thy soul its bent,

Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

What though the earlier grooves

Which ran the laughing loves

Around thy base, no longer pause and press ?
What though, about thy rim,

Skull-things in order grim

Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

Look not thou down, but up!

To uses of a cup,

The festal board, lamp's flash, and trumpet's peal,

The new wine's foaming flow,

The Master's lips aglow!

Thou, Heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with

earth's wheel?

But I need, now as then,

Thee, God, who mouldest men ;

And since, not even while the whirl was worst,
Did I to the wheel of life,

With shapes and colors rife,

Bound dizzily - mistake my end, to slake thy thirst;

So, take and use thy work!
Amend what flaws may lurk,

What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim !
My times be in thy hand!

Perfect the cup as planned!

Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same !

E nymphs of Solyma, begin the song, To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong. The mossy fountains and the sylvan shades, The dreams of Pindus and the Aonian maids, Delight no more, O thou my voice inspire Who touched Isaiah's hallowed lips with fire! Rapt into future times the bard begun :

A virgin shall conceive,

a virgin bear a son!

From Jesse's root behold a branch arise

Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies!
The ethereal spirit o'er its leaves shall move,
And on its top descends the mystic dove.
Ye heavens, from high the dewy nectar pour,
And in soft silence shed the kindly shower!
The sick and weak the healing plant shall aid, -
From storm a shelter, and from heat a shade.
All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail;
Returning Justice lift aloft her scale,

Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend,

And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend.

Swift fly the years, and rise the expected morn!
O spring to light! auspicious babe, be born!
See, Nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring,
With all the incense of the breathing Spring!
See lofty Lebanon his head advance;

See nodding forests on the mountains dance;
See spicy clouds from lowly Sharon rise,
And Carmel's flowery top perfumes the skies!
Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers:
Prepare the way! a God, a God appears!
A God, a God! the vocal hills reply,
The rocks proclaim the approaching Deity.
Lo, earth receives Him from the bending skies!
Sink down, ye mountains; and ye valleys, rise!
With heads declined, ye cedars, homage pay!
Be smooth, ye rocks; ye rapid floods, give way!
The Saviour comes! by ancient bards foretold,
Hear Him, ye deaf; and all ye blind, behold!
He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,
And on the sightless eyeball pour the day;
'Tis He the obstructed paths of sound shall clear,
And bid new music charm the unfolding ear;
The dumb shall sing; the lame his crutch forego,
And leap exulting like the bounding roe.
No sigh, no murmur, the wide world shall hear,
From every face He wipes off every tear.
In adamantine chains shall Death be bound,
And hell's grim tyrant feel the eternal wound.
As the good shepherd tends his fleecy care,
Seeks freshest pasture, and the purest air,
Explores the lost, the wandering sheep directs,