XVII.

THE SAME CONTINUED.

A poet cannot strive for despotism; His harp falls shattered; for it still must be The instinct of great spirits to be free, And the sworn foes of cunning barbarism: He, who has deepest searched the wide abysm Of that life-giving Soul which men call fate, Knows that to put more faith in lies and hate Than truth and love is the true atheism: Upward the soul forever turns her eyes; The next hour always shames the hour before; One beauty, at its highest, prophesies That by whose side it shall seem mean and poor; No God-like thing knows aught of less and less, But widens to the boundless Perfectness.