’Nature rejects the monarch, not the man; 170
The subject, not the citizen:  for kings
And subjects, mutual foes, forever play
A losing game into each other’s hands,
Whose stakes are vice and misery.  The man
Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys. 175
Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate’er it touches; and obedience,
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
Makes slaves of men, and, of the human frame,
A mechanized automaton. 
When Nero, 180
High over flaming Rome, with savage joy
Lowered like a fiend, drank with enraptured ear
The shrieks of agonizing death, beheld
The frightful desolation spread, and felt
A new-created sense within his soul 185
Thrill to the sight, and vibrate to the sound;
Think’st thou his grandeur had not overcome
The force of human kindness? and, when Rome,
With one stern blow, hurled not the tyrant down,
Crushed not the arm red with her dearest blood 190
Had not submissive abjectness destroyed
Nature’s suggestions? 
Look on yonder earth: 
The golden harvests spring; the unfailing sun
Sheds light and life; the fruits, the flowers, the trees,
Arise in due succession; all things speak 195
Peace, harmony, and love.  The universe,
In Nature’s silent eloquence, declares
That all fulfil the works of love and joy,—­
All but the outcast, Man.  He fabricates
The sword which stabs his peace; he cherisheth 200
The snakes that gnaw his heart; he raiseth up
The tyrant, whose delight is in his woe,
Whose sport is in his agony.  Yon sun,
Lights it the great alone?  Yon silver beams,
Sleep they less sweetly on the cottage thatch 205
Than on the dome of kings?  Is mother Earth
A step-dame to her numerous sons, who earn
Her unshared gifts with unremitting toil;
A mother only to those puling babes
Who, nursed in ease and luxury, make men 210
The playthings of their babyhood, and mar,
In self-important childishness, that peace
Which men alone appreciate?

’Spirit of Nature! no. 
The pure diffusion of thy essence throbs 215
Alike in every human heart. 
Thou, aye, erectest there
Thy throne of power unappealable: 
Thou art the judge beneath whose nod
Man’s brief and frail authority 220
Is powerless as the wind
That passeth idly by. 
Thine the tribunal which surpasseth
The show of human justice,
As God surpasses man. 225