Come, I will show thee an affliction, unnumbered among this world's sorrows, Yet real and wearisome and constant, embittering the cup of life. There be, who can think within themselves, and the fire burneth at their heart, And eloquence waiteth at their lips, yet they speak not with their tongue: There be, whom zeal quickeneth, or slander stirreth to reply, Or need constraineth to ask, or pity sendeth as her messengers, But nervous dread and sensitive shame freeze the current of their speech; The mouth is sealed as with lead, a cold weight presseth on the heart, The mocking promise of power is once more broken in performance, And they stand impotent of words, travailing with unborn thoughts; Courage is cowed at the portal; wisdom is widowed of utterance; He that went to comfort is pitied; he that should rebuke, is silent: And fools who might listen and learn, stand by to look and laugh; While friends, with kinder eyes, wound deeper by compassion: And thought, finding not a vent, smouldereth, gnawing at the heart, And the man sinketh in his sphere, for lack of empty sounds. There be many cares and sorrows thou hast not yet considered, And well may thy soul rejoice in the fair privilege of speech; For at every turn to want a word,--thou canst not guess that want; It is as lack of breath or bread: life hath no grief more galling. Come, I will tell thee of a joy, which the parasites of pleasure have not known, Though earth and air and sea have gorged all the appetites of sense. Behold, what fire is in his eye, what fervour on his cheek! That glorious burst of winged words! how bound they from his tongue! The full expression of the mighty thought, the strong triumphant argument, The rush of native eloquence, resistless as Niagara, The keen demand, the clear reply, the fine poetic image, The nice analogy, the clenching fact, the metaphor bold and free, The grasp of concentrated intellect wielding the omnipotence of truth, The grandeur of his speech in his majesty of mind! Champion of the right,--patriot, or priest, or pleader of the innocent cause, Upon whose lips the mystic bee hath dropped the honey of persuasion, Whose heart and tongue have been touched, as of old, by the live coal from the altar, How wide the spreading of thy peace, how deep the draught of thy pleasures! To hold the multitude as one, breathing in measured cadence, A thousand men with flashing eyes, waiting upon thy will; A thousand hearts kindled by thee with consecrated fire, Ten flaming spiritual hecatombs offered on the mount of God: And now a pause, a thrilling pause,--they live but in thy words,-- Thou hast broken the bounds of self, as the Nile at its rising, Thou art expanded into them, one faith, one hope, one spirit, They breathe but in thy breath, their minds are passive unto thine, Thou turnest the key of their love, bending their affections to thy purpose,