Not half so closely their warm cheeks, unpaled
    By thoughts of thy brute lust,—­the hive-like hum
    Of peaceful commonwealths, where sunburnt Toil 160
    Reaps for itself the rich earth made its own
    By its own labor, lightened with glad hymns
    To an omnipotence which thy mad bolts
    Would cope with as a spark with the vast sea,—­
    Even the spirit of free love and peace, 165
    Duty’s sure recompense through life and death,—­
    These are such harvests as all master-spirits
    Reap, haply not on earth, but reap no less
    Because the sheaves are bound by hands not theirs;
    These are the bloodless daggers wherewithal 170
    They stab fallen tyrants, this their high revenge: 
    For their best part of life on earth is when,
    Long after death, prisoned and pent no more,
    Their thoughts, their wild dreams even, have become
    Part of the necessary air men breathe:  175
    When, like the moon, herself behind a cloud,
    They shed down light before us on life’s sea,
    That cheers us to steer onward still in hope. 
    Earth with her twining memories ivies o’er
    Their holy sepulchres; the chainless sea, 180
    In tempest or wide calm, repeats their thoughts;
    The lightning and the thunder, all free things,
    Have legends of them for the ears of men. 
    All other glories are as falling stars,
    But universal Nature watches theirs:  185
    Such strength is won by love of human-kind.

      Not that I feel that hunger after fame,
    Which souls of a half-greatness are beset with;
    But that the memory of noble deeds
    Cries shame upon the idle and the vile, 190
    And keeps the heart of Man forever up
    To the heroic level of old time. 
    To be forgot at first is little pain
    To a heart conscious of such high intent
    As must be deathless on the lips of men; 195
    But, having been a name, to sink and be
    A something which the world can do without,
    Which, having been or not, would never change
    The lightest pulse of fate,—­this is indeed
    A cup of bitterness the worst to taste, 200
    And this thy heart shall empty to the dregs. 
    Endless despair shall be thy Caucasus,
    And memory thy vulture; thou wilt find
    Oblivion far lonelier than this peak,—­
    Behold thy destiny!  Thou think’st it much 205
    That I should brave thee, miserable god! 
    But I have braved a mightier than thou. 
    Even the tempting of this soaring heart,
    Which might have made me, scarcely less than thou,
    A god among my brethren weak