But if to be a “Bard Sublime?”-- A prater, Aspiring to soar ’midst lofty peaks on painted scenes; to catch with musty mystery; with empty schemes of praise; with sheens of artificial light, spread o’er this prolonged night and sleep of letters; or with palsied moonbeams that miniature the day and blight tart speech and full-ripe reason; To buoy vanity; To bid for foolish charlatan’s esteem, To live apart at ease and shirk, Good hard holy healthy work; To mingle not with clean magnetic dirt, With healing, building sunshine, air and rain.-- Then be a heralder of “New Thought” Cite from thy store: Great Deeds And haughty interminglings; Praise, to have a share; Valor, in which words win; Chastisement, which you do not feel; Abnegation, with no self-denial. Whatever thy saying, Mark you full well That all such machinations Must and will be counted less Than Brawn-Studies in great Nature’s realm. If swept away from Nature’s gentle sway Too weak to rise and understand Thy full purpose, and the coming day:-- Then feed, feed on thy kind and kith and kin Plunge in, into the maelstrom; Amidst the deaf’ning roar, Swim ’midst molten masses, Breast cataracts of seething, living action, Tell of harnessing of power, Of screech and scream, Of whirr of wheels; Of lightning’s use and speed; Of clank and bang and whisp and twirl of rasp and plane and drill on rock and wood and metal. For therein lies a ripe, rich, unwrit story; And place the credit where the credit’s due. Use freely, and without fear thy caustic pen, Ruffle, ruthlessly pursue, dog and undo Proud spirited, designing men. Spur the laggard. Jeer at that part of press which teems with misstatements, lies, inuendos-- Those who prod and sting; Excite the very life they claim to be, For gain, For great and greater power, circulation. A song or story to go on, up, through distant ages Must be full told and strong with facts:-- Tell of myriads of human beings, Crushed, dwarfed, poisoned and devoured, By the arts and manufactures; Voices drown’d, subdued, smothered amid the din. Tell of the march of industry’s deafening roar affecting a nation’s reasoning and sealing its store of finest instincts. Tell of designing kings of trade Who, on a _free man’s_ soil! So multiplied their wealth That all their fellow-beings Were their _willing_ slave-- Slaves living lives in imputrid bodies-- Souls seasoned with sorrows and blasted hopes; Of endless yesterdays, Long looking and longing and looking For happiness, to come on some to-morrow.