"Long have I watched and waited, but no sound Broke the wild stillness of this stern abode, 360 Save thunder's fiery foot-print smote the ground, Or far beneath some torrent's fury flowed; Anon the screaming eagle past me rode; The seeker after gold, with toilsome stride, And eager eye to fix the shining lode, Hath paused and panted on the hill's steep side; But none, for greater things, till now have hither hied. "And thou, O pensive crier in the waste, Invoker of the Voice now visible! Prepared art thou a mystery to taste, 370 Whose fruit is joy or woe ineffable? Pluck not of wisdom's branches bending full, Drink not of that divine philosophy, Save thou canst bravely suffer wrong's misrule, Thy best intent thought ill; save thou canst be What men deem "fool," real fools despising, pitying thee. "Not all my ministry to lift the gloom Yet hovering o'er this mystic hemisphere. List while I tell, for I am one by whom Future and past as present shall appear. 380 In me behold Messiah's Minister, Ancient of time and of eternity, Spirit of song that moved the Hebrew seer, Voice of the stars[7] ere earth's nativity; Exile, for ages gone, of mortal minstrelsy. "See now my sacred heritage, the prey Of ribald rhymesters, sensuous, half obscene; Of gloating censors, glad o'er my decay, And deeming all but best I ne'er had been! The body's bard[8] throned, sceptering the scene, 390 A groveling worshiper of earth and time. Arise! and with thy soul's celestial sheen, Shame these false meteors, change the ruling chime; My minstrel, I thy muse, sing thou the song sublime! "Sing, poet, sing! but not of new--of old, Of old and new--eternal truth thy theme, That holdeth past and future in her fold, That maketh present but a passing dream, While time and earth and man as trifles seem; That knoweth not of new, or old, or strange; 400 Whose everduring, all-redemptive scheme, Fixt and immutable 'mid worlds of change, On, on, from universe to universe doth range. "Faint not, nor fear, for all shall fare thy way-- My way, His way, the Master's, evermore. East shall seem West, rethrown the rising ray, Shining afar from this most ancient shore[9], And man shall rise[10] e'en where man fell before. Fools may deride, may jeer at destiny; They mock to mourn, oblivion earths them o'er; 410 While they that champion truth, by truth shall be Exalted, e'en in time, to live eternally."