How Rule unbuilt each day anew, With tempered glow each brutish fire, Shall lack of pith to fame the True, Unlaureled stand before the Sire. Nay, to unbred ages hand the bill For bounden due and bitter scan; The compt and trust he shrank to fill, To bate the sum of answering Man. O, John, thy file of friends runs fast and queer! Be sick awhile with honest doubt! Best heart still doffs to wholesome Fear: Revise thy list--leave spongers out! Oh yes, I know what thou would'st say: "Thou bits't a stiff and rough-back mare, Unblest, unbroke to right obey, Lest as she catch the trumpet's flare." But there again thy false friends spoke-- Each fisty Brave that wearies Time, Who 'ld headlong rush the brazen yoke, Than share a pace, so all may climb. More apt to speed with reckless spur Thy nicer o'er thy nobler star Than bring to eye what tho' it blur, Yet, warning, sheens the misty Far. Oh, yes, I know, as world-walks shift, There is sore push for forward seats: We quake at taunts from ride-hard Thrift, Then late her pace with churlish heats-- And wear this mask before our hearts, This paltry shift of truckling breed, That veering Trade or waning marts-- All drift that swerves with human need-- May tide with looks the franker Light, With crafty lead, its artless youth, While Just, a bawd to brazen Right, New bastards bear the groaning Truth. Suppose we take a backward look, Past years as yet scarce out o' moulds: You, from your near-illumined Book, I--whence no home-trick holds. In damning truth, a proper pry, Since at its head War whets his sword, While Justice puts her ægis by, And eats his brag and bully's word-- A look as far as when befell, What glamored fierce the bridging sea, Each flary crest at push to tell How the white stones shone in Kimberley-- And dimmed your faith and glossed the pledge, And juggled Right with wheedling Wrong; Gave Cant new stand--this privilege: To rest all cause on proof of Strong. Your pious grab, the half-heart rue, The hush you paid to still a twinge, All snugged within this lofty view-- "He steers the moke who holds the cinch." But in your big Book that's fable now, Might sleep, kept not this line awake-- "That meddling pasts, ne'er done, somehow, Assess for quits all present stake." Since just as deft his story wove The yellow Devil in the Rand, As Dame Empire, O, so high suave, Took bleary Mammon by the hand-- And there was nudge and jobbing kiss, And scan o' map and leer of eye: "How came our wits so wide of this-- It lay so near and tempting by?"