Thought

Thought

Spirit of Thought, not thine the songs that flow

To fill with love or lull Idalian hours.

Thou wert not nurtured ’mid the marish flowers,

Or where the nightshade blooms, or lilies blow:

But on the mountains. From those keeps of snow

Thou seëst the heavens, and earth, and marts and towers

Of teeming man; the battle smoke that lours

Above the nations where they strive below;⁠—

The gleam of golden cohorts and the cloud

Of shrieking peoples yielding to the brink⁠—

The gleam, the gold, the agony, the rage;

The civic virtue of a race unbow’d;

The reeling empire, lost in license, sink;

And chattering pigmies of a later age.

1881-2.