"Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set In midst of knowledge,dream'd not yet.

Thou hast not gain'd a real height, Nor art thou nearer to the light, Because the scale is infinite.

""Twere better not to breathe or speak, Than cry for strength, remaining weak, And seem to find, but still to seek.

"Moreover, but to seem to find Asks what thou lackest, thought resign'd,

A healthy frame, a quiet mind."

"As far as might be, to carve out Free space for every human doubt, That the whole mind might orb about

"To search through all I felt or saw, The springs of life, the depths of awe, And reach the law within the law:

"At least, not rotting like a weed, But, having sown some generous seed, Fruitful of further thought and deed,

"To pass when Life her light withdraws,

Not void of righteous self-applause, Nor in a merely selfish cause —

"In some good cause, not in mine own To perish, wept for, honor'd, known, And like a warrior overthrown;

"Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears,

When soil'd with noble dust, he hears His country's war-song thrill his ears:

"Then dying of a mortal stroke,
What time the foeman's line is broke,
And all the war is rolled in smoke."
"Yea!" said the voice, "thy dream
was good,

While thou abodest in the bud.
It was the stirring of the blood.

"If Nature put not forth her power
About the opening of the flower,
Who is it that could live an hour?

"Then comes the check, the change, the fall,

.Pain rises up, old pleasures pall.
There is one remedy for all.

"Yet hadst thou, thro' enduring pain, Link'd month to month with such a chain

Of knitted purport, all were vain.

"Thou hadst not between death and

birth

Dissolved the riddle of the earth. So were thy labor little-worth.