“What make we, murmur’st thou, and what are we? 
  When empires must be wound, we bring the shroud,
  The time-old web of the implacable Three: 
  Is it too coarse for him, the young and proud? 
  Earth’s mightiest deigned to wear it; why not he?”

  “Is there no hope?” I moaned.  “So strong, so fair! 
  Our Fowler, whose proud bird would brook erewhile
  No rival’s swoop in all our western air! 
  Gather the ravens, then, in funeral file,
  For him, life’s morn-gold bright yet in his hair?

  “Leave me not hopeless, ye unpitying dames! 
  I see, half-seeing.  Tell me, ye who scanned
  The stars, Earth’s elders, still must noblest aims
  Be traced upon oblivious ocean-sands? 
  Must Hesper join the wailing ghosts of names?”

  “When grass-blades stiffen with red battle-dew,
  Ye deem we choose the victors and the slain: 
  Say, choose we them that shall be leal and true
  To the heart’s longing, the high faith of brain? 
  Yet here the victory is, if ye but knew.

  “Three roots bear up Dominion:  Knowledge, Will,—­
  These two are strong, but stronger yet the third,—­
  Obedience, the great tap-root, that still,
  Knit round the rock of Duty, is not stirred,
  Though the storm’s ploughshare spend its utmost skill.

  “Is the doom sealed for Hesper?  ’T is not we
  Denounce it, but the Law before all time: 
  The brave makes danger opportunity;
  The waverer, paltering with the chance sublime,
  Dwarfs it to peril:  which shall Hesper be?

  “Hath he let vultures climb his eagle’s seat
  To make Jove’s bolts purveyors of their maw? 
  Hath he the Many’s plaudits found more sweet
  Than wisdom? held Opinion’s wind for law? 
  Then let him hearken for the headsman’s feet!

  “Rough are the steps, slow-hewn in flintiest rock,
  States climb to power by; slippery those with gold
  Down which they stumble to eternal mock: 
  No chafferer’s hand shall long the sceptre hold,
  Who, given a Fate to shape, would sell the block.

  “We sing old sagas, songs of weal and woe,
  Mystic because too cheaply understood;
  Dark sayings are not ours; men hear and know,
  See Evil weak, see only strong the Good,
  Yet hope to balk Doom’s fire with walls of tow.

  “Time Was unlocks the riddle of Time Is,
  That offers choice of glory and of gloom;
  The solver makes Time Shall Be surely his.—­
  But hasten, Sisters! for even now the tomb
  Grates its slow hinge and calls from the abyss.”

  “But not for him,” I cried, “not yet for him,
  Whose large horizon, westering, star by star
  Wins from the void to where on ocean’s rim
  The sunset shuts the world with golden bar,—­
  Not yet his thews shall fail, his eye grow dim!

  “His shall be larger manhood, saved for those
  That walk unblenching through the trial-fires;
  Not suffering, but faint heart is worst of woes,
  And he no base-born son of craven sires,
  Whose eye need droop, confronted with his foes.