Oh when most self-exalted most alone, Chief dreamer, own thy dream! Thy brother-world stirs at thy feet unknown, Who hath a monarch's hath no brother's part; Yet doth thine inmost soul with yearning teem. --Oh, what a spasm shakes the dreamer's heart! "_I, too, but seem._" THE WORLD AND THE QUIETIST TO CRITIAS "Why, when the world's great mind Hath finally inclined, Why," you say, Critias, "be debating still? Why, with these mournful rhymes Learn'd in more languid climes, Blame our activity Who, with such passionate will, Are what we mean to be?" Critias, long since, I know (For Fate decreed it so), Long since the world hath set its heart to live; Long since, with credulous zeal It turns life's mighty wheel, Still doth for labourers send Who still their labour give, And still expects an end. Yet, as the wheel flies round, With no ungrateful sound Do adverse voices fall on the world's ear. Deafen'd by his own stir The rugged labourer Caught not till then a sense So glowing and so near Of his omnipotence. So, when the feast grew loud In Susa's palace proud, A white-robed slave stole to the Great King's side. He spake--the Great King heard; Felt the slow-rolling word Swell his attentive soul; Breathed deeply as it died, And drain'd his mighty bowl. HORATIAN ECHO[4] (TO AN AMBITIOUS FRIEND) Omit, omit, my simple friend, Still to enquire how parties tend, Or what we fix with foreign powers. If France and we are really friends, And what the Russian Czar intends, Is no concern of ours. Us not the daily quickening race Of the invading populace Shall draw to swell that shouldering herd. Mourn will we not your closing hour, Ye imbeciles in present power, Doom'd, pompous, and absurd! And let us bear, that they debate Of all the engine-work of state, Of commerce, laws, and policy, The secrets of the world's machine, And what the rights of man may mean, With readier tongue than we. Only, that with no finer art They cloak the troubles of the heart With pleasant smile, let us take care; Nor with a lighter hand dispose Fresh garlands of this dewy rose, To crown Eugenia's hair. Of little threads our life is spun, And he spins ill, who misses one. But is thy fair Eugenia cold? Yet Helen had an equal grace, And Juliet's was as fair a face, And now their years are told.