Should come, Man's Teacher. Pray as Persia prayed; And see ye pray for Vengeance! Leave till then To Rome her Idol fanes and pilfered Gods. I see you, O my People, year by year Strengthened by sufferings; pains that crush the weak, Your helpers. Men have been that, poison-fed, Grew poison-proof: on pain and wrong feed ye! The wild-beast rage against you! frost and fire Rack you in turn! I'll have no gold among you; With gold come wants; and wants mean servitude. Edge, each, his spear with fish-bone or with flint, Leaning for prop on none. I want no Nations! A Race I fashion, playing not at States: I take the race of Man, the breed that lifts Alone its brow to heaven: I change that race From clay to stone, from stone to adamant Through slow abrasion, such as leaves sea-shelves Lustrous at last and smooth. To _be_, not _have_, A man to be; no heritage to clasp Save that which simple manhood, at its will, Or conquers or re-conquers, held meanwhile In trust for Virtue; this alone is greatness. Remain ye Tribes, not Nations; led by Kings, Great onward-striding Kings, above the rest High towering, like the keel-compelling sail That takes the topmost tempest. Let them die, Each for his people! I will die for mine Then when my work is finished; not before. That Bandit King who founded Rome, the Accursed, Vanished in storm. My sons shall see me die, Die, strong to lead them till my latest breath, Which shall not be a sigh; shall see and say, 'This Man far-marching through the mountainous world, No God, but yet God's Prophet of the North, Gave many crowns to others: for himself His people were his crown.' Four hundred years-- Ye shall find savage races in your path: Be ye barbaric, ay, but savage not: Hew down the baser lest they drag you down; Ye cannot raise them: they fulfil their fates: Be terrible to foes, be kind to friend: Be just; be true. Revere the Household Hearth; This knowing, that beside it dwells a God: Revere the Priest, the King, the Bard, the Maid, The Mother of the heroic race--five strings Sounding God's Lyre. Drive out with lance for goad That idiot God by Rome called Terminus, Who standing sleeps, and holds his reign o'er fools. The earth is God's, not Man's: that Man from Him Holds it whose valour earns it. Time shall come, It may be, when the warfare shall be past, The reign triumphant of the brave and just In peace consolidated. Time may come When that long winter of the Northern Land Shall find its spring. Where spreads the black morass Harvest all gold may glitter; cities rise Where roamed the elk; and nations set their thrones; Nations not like those empires known till now, But wise and pure. Let such their temples build