For though a king see duty's pathway plain, And walk therein, as he who now arose; 1620 What monarch from misrule can all refrain, When privilege lifts power o'er friends and foes? Bare is the reign untarnished to the close, And rarer still the blameless dynasty. Ofttimes as princes the unkingliest pose, Because, forsooth, they come of some tall tree, Whose root and trunk were sound, while branches blasted be. True kingliness--what else proves man a king? A slave, though throned and sceptered, bides a slave; Nor pride, nor pelf, nor all that power may bring, 1630 Can make the serf a sovereign, or yet save The dust of either from the common grave. Royal the soul must be, or comes to end All royalty. Spirit, then blood, God gave; And each at last its separate way doth wend Home to the parent source, to meet no more, nor blend. Scarce gone the goodly ruler when his realm Saw fierce rebellion rear its horrent head. Usurping treason seized the civic helm, Wrong trampled right, and justice, judgment, fled. 1640 Ages looked on while battling kingdoms bled. Lifted the warning voice--its pleading vain: A blood-drowned continent, a sea of dead, And, of a mighty people, fallen, self-slain, A prophet and a king, a solitary twain[35]. That prophet saw the coming of the Lord Unto the Old, the New, Jerusalem; Saw Israel returning at His word From wheresoe'er His will had scattered them; The realm's wide ruin saw, and strove to stem. 1650 That king, sole scion of a perished race, Casting his blood-stained sword and diadem, Lived but to see another nation[36] place Firm foot upon the soil, then vanished from its face. --- Wondrous, indeed, that ancient word and wise; But wiser and more wondrous still the tale-- The after tale[37] of silent centuries, Tongued by the guardian of the tome of gold: Again, athwart the wilderness of waves Surging old East and older West between, 1660 Where the lone sea a flowery southland laves, And Zarahemla reigns as ocean queen, Braving the swell, a storm-tossed bark is seen. From doomed Jerusalem, to Jacob dear, Albeit a leper[38], groping, blind, unclean, Goes forth Manasseh's prophet pioneer[39], Predestined to unveil the hidden hemisphere. His lot to reap and plant on this rare shore The promise of his fathers: Joseph's bough[40], From Jacob's well, the billowy wall runs o'er; 1670 Abides in strength the archer-stricken bow, Unto the utmost bound prevailing now, Of Hesper's heaven-upholding hills. Bend, sheaves Of Israel, as branches bend with snow, Unto his sheaf grown mightiest! Here, as leaves For multitude, the son the great sire's glory weaves.