"_Was ever man so proud as is this_ MARCIUS?" There spake the babbling Tribune! Proud? Great gods! All power seems pride to men of petty souls, As the oak's knotted strength seems arrogance To the slime-rooted and wind-shaken reed That shivers in the shallows. I who perched, An eagle on the topmost pinnacle Of the State's eminence, and harried thence All lesser fowl like sparrows!--I to hide Like a chased moor-hen in a marsh, and bate The breath that awed the world into a whisper, That would not shake a taper-flame or stir A flickering torch to flaring! "_I do wonder_ _His insolence can brook to be commanded_ _Under_ COMINIUS." So the Roman said: SICINIUS VELUTUS, thou hadst reason. Under COMINIUS! Who's COMINIUS now? The adolescent Emperor, or his cool Complacent Chancellor? COMINIUS! Unseasoned youth, or untried middle-age, A shouting boy, or a sleek-spoken elder, Hot stripling, cool supplanter! I serve not "Under COMINIUS," nay!--yet since he stands There, where I made firm footing amidst chaos, Stands in smug comfort where we Titans struggled-- MOLTKE, and I, and the great Emperor,-- Struggled for vantage, which he owes to us;-- Since he stands there, and I in shadow sit, Silenced and chidden, I half _feel_ I serve, Whom he would bid to second. Second _him_, In that Imperial Policy whose vast And soaring shape, like air-launched eagle, seemed To fill the sky, and shadow half the world? As well the Eagle's self might be expected To second the small jay! My shadow, mine? Yes, but distorted by the skew-cast ray Of a far lesser sun than lit the noon Of my meridian glory. So I spurn The shrunken simulacrum! And they shriek, Shout censure at me, the cur-crowd who crouched, Ere that a woman's hate and a boy's pride Smote me, the new Abimelech, so sore; They'd hush me, like a garrulous greybeard, chaired At the hearth-corner out of harm; they'd hush My voice--the valorous vermin! What say they? "_That's a brave fellow; but he's vengeance proud_; _Loves not the common people!_" Humph! I stand As MARCIUS would not, in the market-place, And show my wounds to the people. Is _that_ pride? I stooped to--_her!_--let me not think of that; 'T would poison paradise!--but is _that_ pride? The Roman pride was stiff and taciturn, And I,--they tell me, I "will still be talking," And no MENENIUS is by to say In charity of the modern MARCIUS, "_Consider this:--he has been bred i'the wars_ _Since he could draw a sword, and is ill-school'd_ _In bolted language: meal and bran together_ _He throws without distinction_." Well, well, well "_I would he had continued to his country_ _As he began; and not unknit, himself,_ _The noble knot he made_." So they'll whine out