I.

As, flake by flake, the beetling avalanches Build up their imminent crags of noiseless snow, Till some chance thrill the loosened ruin launches And the blind havoc leaps unwarned below, So grew and gathered through the silent years The madness of a People, wrong by wrong. There seemed no strength in the dumb toiler's tears,-- No strength in suffering;--but the Past was strong: The brute despair of trampled centuries Leaped up with one hoarse yell and snapped its bands, Groped for its right with horny, callous hands, And stared around for God with bloodshot eyes. What wonder if those palms were all too hard For nice distinctions,--if that mænad throng-- They whose thick atmosphere no bard Had shivered with the lightning of his song, Brutes with the memories and desires of men, Whose chronicles were writ with iron pen, In the crooked shoulder and the forehead low-- Set wrong to balance wrong, And physicked woe with woe?