Make heirship do the work of muscle, sail The leathern apron over armies spread He who rules Must humour full as much as he commands; Must let men vow impossibilities; Grant folly's prayers that hinder folly's wish High device is still the highest force, And he who holds the secret of the wheel May make the rivers do what work he would. With thoughts impalpable we clutch men's souls, Weaken the joints of armies, make them fly Like dust and leaves before the viewless wind. Tell me what's mirrored in the tiger's heart, I'll rule that too. 0 What man is he who brandishes a sword A woman's dream-who thinks by smiling well To ripen figs in frost. -0 Vengeance is just : Justly we rid the earth of human fiends The great avenging angel does not crawl He stands erect, with sword of keenest edge Men might well seek For purifying rites; even pious deeds Need washing. (To Fedalma.) Ah, yes! all preciousness To mortal hearts is guarded by a fear. All love fears loss, and most that loss supreme, Its own perfection-seeing, feeling change From high to lower, dearer to less dear. Can love be careless? If we lost our love What should we find ?—with this sweet Past torn off, Our lives deep scarred just where their beauty lay? The best we found thenceforth were still a worse: The only better is a Past that lives On through an added Present, stretching still In hope unchecked by shaming memories There's no blameless life Save for the passionless, no sanctities But have the selfsame roof and props with crime, Or have their roots close interlaced with vileness. I am no friend of fines and banishment, Or flames that, fed on heretics, still gape, And must have heretics made to feed them still. Prudence is but conceit Hoodwinked by ignorance. There's nought exists Thoughts That nourish us to magnanimity Grow perfect with more perfect utterance, —0— Conscience is harder than our enemies, Love supreme Defies all sophistry-risks avenging fires. For me 'Tis what I love determines how I love. The goddess with pure rites reveals herself 0 Rivers blent take in a broader heaven, And we shall blend our souls. What is our certainty? Why, knowing all That is not secret. Mighty confidence! One pulse of Time makes the base hollow-sends The towering certainty we built so high Toppling in fragments meaningless. What is— Are made of our conjectures, take their sense With fangs swift growing. Life's a vast sea That does its mighty errand without fail, Panting in unchanged strength though waves are changing. Truth, to us, is like a living child Born of two parents: if the parents part And will divide the child, how shall it live? Or, I will rather say: Two angels guide The path of man, both aged and yet young, As angels are, ripening through endless years. On one he leans: some call her Memory, And some, Tradition; and her voice is sweet, With deep mysterious accords: the other, Floating above, holds down a lamp which streams A light divine and searching on the earth, Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields, Yet clings with loving check, and shines anew |