YE poets of our transient poverty!
Weak strengths that pour sick passions into song!
Who finding right struck dumb, enthrone a wrong,
And crown mean lust with love's own royalty!
Though I could find it in mine heart to be,--
In some defiant moods at self's high tide,--
A voice in your wild choir of craven pride,
Yet rather let me cease from minstrelsy
To grope for ever dumbly, onward still
Up the old rugged way, the blood-stained hill
That seen afar in youth seemed plainest road
Leading from self the slave, to man the god.
Yea, rather let me lay my music by
Than for mere music's sake hymn slavery.