TRUE, we must tame our rebel will: True, we must bow to Nature's law: Must bear in silence many an ill; Must learn to wait, renounce, withdraw. Yet now, when boldest wills give place, When Fate and Circumstance are strong, And in their rush the human race Are swept, like huddling sheep, along; Those sterner spirits let me prize, Who, though the tendence of the whole They less than us might recognize, Kept, more than us, their strength of soul. Yes, be the second Cato prais'd! Not that he took the course to die-- But that, when 'gainst himself he rais'd His arm, he rais'd it dauntlessly. And, Byron! let us dare admire, If not thy fierce and turbid song, Yet that, in anguish, doubt, desire, Thy fiery courage still was strong. The sun that on thy tossing pain Did with such cold derision shine, He crush'd thee not with his disdain-- He had his glow, and thou hadst thine. Our bane, disguise it as we may, Is weakness, is a faltering course. Oh that past times could give our day, Join'd to its clearness, of their force! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BUCOLIC COMEDY: THE BEAR by EDITH SITWELL BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT FOR SISTER CAROLINE [DECEMBER 2O, 1860] by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES CATAWBA WINE by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS by THOMAS MOORE EPITAPH FOR ONE WHO WOULD NOT BE BURIED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY by ALEXANDER POPE LET ME FORGET by OMA CARLYLE ANDERSON |