"Why?" Because all I haply can and do, All that I am now, all I hope to be,-- Whence comes it save from fortune setting free Body and soul the purpose to pursue, God traced for both? If fetters, not a few, Of prejudice, convention, fall from me, These shall I bid men--each in his degree Also God-guided--bear, and gayly too? But little do or can the best of us: That little is achieved thro' Liberty. Who then dares hold, emancipated thus, His fellow shall continue bound? not I, Who live, love, labor freely, nor discuss A brother's right to freedom. That is "Why." FEARS AND SCRUPLES Here's my case. Of old I used to love him, This same unseen friend, before I knew: Dream there was none like him, none above him,-- Wake to hope and trust my dream was true. Loved I not his letters full of beauty? Not his actions famous far and wide? Absent, he would know I vowed him duty, Present, he would find me at his side. Pleasant fancy! for I had but letters, Only knew of actions by hearsay: He himself was busied with my betters; What of that? My turn must come some day. "Some day" proving--no day! Here's the puzzle Passed and passed my turn is. Why complain? He's so busied! If I could but muzzle People's foolish mouths that give me pain! "Letters?" (hear them!) "You a judge of writing? Ask the experts!--How they shake the head O'er these characters, your friend's inditing-- Call them forgery from A to Zed!" "Actions? Where's your certain proof" (they bother), "He, of all you find so great and good, He, he only, claims this, that, the other Action--claimed by men, a multitude?" I can simply wish I might refute you, Wish my friend would,--by a word, a wink,-- Bid me stop that foolish mouth,--you brute, you! He keeps absent,--why, I cannot think. Never mind! Tho' foolishness may flout me One thing's sure enough; 'tis neither frost, No, nor fire, shall freeze or burn from out me Thanks for truth--tho' falsehood, gained--tho' lost. All my days, I'll go the softlier, sadlier, For that dream's sake! How forget the thrill Thro' and thro' me as I thought, "The gladlier Lives my friend because I love him still!" Ah, but there's a menace some one utters! "What and if your friend at home play tricks? Peep at hide-and-seek behind the shutters? Mean your eyes should pierce thro' solid bricks? "What and if he, frowning, wake you, dreamy? Lay on you the blame that bricks--conceal? Say '_At least I saw who did not see me; Does see now, and presently shall feel'?_" "Why, that makes your friend a monster!" say you: "Had his house no window? At first nod Would you not have hailed him?" Hush, I pray you! What if this friend happen to be--God? EPILOGUE TO "ASOLANDO"