II.

Alas! no more to golden palaces, To starlit founts and dryad-haunted trees, The SWEET DELUSION wafts the dreamy soul; But with slow step and steadfast eyes that strain Dazzled and scathed, towards the far-flaming goal He braved the storm, and labour'd up the plain O doubtful labour, but O glorious pain! On the doom'd sight the gradual darkness steals Bates he a jot of heart and hope?--he feels But in his loss a world's eternal gain.[E] Blame we or laud the Cause, all human life Is grander by one grand self-sacrifice; While earth disputes if righteous be the strife, The martyr soars beyond it to the skies. Yes, though when Freedom had her temple won She rear'd a scaffold to obscure a shrine; And, by the human sacrifice of one, Sullied the million,--who could then define The subtle tints where good and evil blend?-- There comes no rainbow when the floods descend! Who, just escaped the chain and prison-bar, Halts on the bridge to guess where glides the stream; Who plays the casuist 'mid the roar of war; Or in the arena builds the Academe? Whate'er their errors, lightly those condemn Who, had they felt not, fought not, glow'd and err'd, Had left us what their fathers left to them-- Either the thraldom of the passive herd Stall'd for the shambles at the master's word, Or the dread overleap of walls that close, And spears that bristle:--And the last they chose. Calm from the hills their children gaze to-day, And breathe the airs to which they forced the way.