Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The poetical works of Alfred Tennyson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material is part of the Elmer Belt Florence Nightingale collection. The original may be consulted at University of California Libraries.
793/870 page 757
![From the golden alms ot Blessing man I Envy wears the mask of Love, and, laugh- liad coiu'd himself a curse : | jng sober fact to scoru, Rome of Ci«sar, Home of Peter, which was crueller ? which was worse ''■ France had shown a. light to all men, preach'd a Gospel, all men's good ; Celtic Demos rose a Demon, shriek'd and slaked the light with blood. Hope was ever on her mountain, watching till the day begun Crown'd with sunlight — over darkness — from the still unrisen sun. Have we grown at last beyond the pas- sion of the primal clan ? Kill your enemy, for you hate him,' still, your enemy was a man. Have we sunk below thenk ? peasants maim the helpless horse, and drive Innocent cattle under thatch, and burn the kindlier brutes alive. Brutes, the brutes are not your wrongers — burnt at midnight, found at morn, Twisted hard in mortal agony with their offspring, born-unborn. Clinging to the silent Mother! Are we devils ? are we men ? Sweet St. Francis of Assisi, would that he were here again, He that in his Catholic wholeness used to call the very flowers Sisters, brothers — and the beasts — whose pains are hardly less than ours ! Chaos, Cosmos ! Cosmos, Chaos! who can tell how all will end ! Read the wide world's annals, you, and take their wisdom for your friend. Hope the best, but hold the Present fatal daughter of the Past, Shape your heart to front the hour, but dream not that the hour will last. Ay, if dynamite and revolver leave you courage to be wise : When was age so cramm'd with menace 1 madness'? written, spoken lies ? Cries to Weakest as to Strongest, are equals, equal-born. Ye Equal-born 1 O yes, if yonder hill be level with the flat. Charm us. Orator, till the Lion look nc larger than the Cat. Till the Cat thro' that mirage of over- heated language loom Larger than the Lion,—Demos end ic working its own doom. Russia bursts our Indian barrier, shall we fight her 1 shall we yield ? Pause, before you sound the trumjjet, hear the voices from the field. Those three hundred millions under one Imperial sceptre now. Shall we hold tlieni 1 shall we loose them ? take the suffrage of the ])low. Nay, but these would feel and follow Tiuth if only you and you, Rivals of realm-ruining party, when you speak were wholly true. Plowmen, Shepherds, have I found, and more than once, and still could find. Sons of God, and kings of men in utter nobleness of mind. Truthful, trustful, looking upward to the practised hustings-liar; So the Higher wields the Lower, while the Lower is the Higher. Here and there a cotter's babe, is royal- born by right divine ; Here and there my lord is lower than his o.Kcn or his swine. Chaos, Cosmos! Cosmos, Chaos! once again the sickening game ; Freedom, free to slay herself, and dying while they shout her name. Step by step we gain'd a freedom known to Europe, known to all ; Step by step we rose to greatness, — thro' the tonguesters we may fall. You that woo the Voices— tell them old experience is a fool,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20452597_0793.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
