--Look I once back, a broken pinion I: Black as the rebel angels rained from sky!
--Needs must you drink of me while here you live, And make me rich in feeling I can give.
--A brave To-be is dawn upon my brow: Yet must I read my sister for the How. My daisy better knows her God of beams Than doth an eagle that to mount him seems. She hath the secret never fieriest reach Of wing shall master till men hear her teach.
--Liker the clod flaked by the driving plough, My semblance when I have you not as now. The quiet creatures who escape mishap Bear likeness to pure growths of the green sap: A picture of the settled peace desired By cowards shunning strife or strivers tired. I listen at their breasts: is there no jar Of wrestlings and of stranglings, dead they are, And such a picture as the piercing mind Ranks beneath vegetation. Not resigned Are my true pupils while the world is brute. What edict of the stronger keeps me mute, Stronger impels the motion of my heart. I am not Resignation's counterpart. If that I teach, 'tis little the dry word, Content, but how to savour hope deferred. We come of earth, and rich of earth may be; Soon carrion if very earth are we! The coursing veins, the constant breath, the use Of sleep, declare that strife allows short truce; Unless we clasp decay, accept defeat, And pass despised; "a-cold for lack of heat," Like other corpses, but without death's plea.
--Rather a world of pressing men in arms, Than stagnant, where the sensual piper charms Each drowsy malady and coiling vice With dreams of ease whereof the soul pays price! No home is here for peace while evil breeds, While error governs, none; and must the seeds You sow, you that for long have reaped disdain, Lie barren at the doorway of the brain, Let stout contention drive deep furrows, blood Moisten, and make new channels of its flood!
--My sober little maid, when we meet first, Drinks of me ever with an eager thirst. So can I not of her till circumstance Drugs cravings. Here we see how men advance A doubtful foot, but circle if much stirred, Like dead weeds on whipped waters. Shout the word Prompting their hungers, and they grandly march, As to band-music under Victory's arch. Thus was it, and thus is it; save that then The beauty of frank animals had men.