Veiled Mastery

               Behind the moving tower 
               Of his unbounded power
God veils his presence from the eye of things,
               Yet hurling forth and far 
               With never a clash or jar
Ten thousand, thousand lives, in swift concentric rings.
               Ever backward under the dim 
               And subtle glooms of mystery, 
               Shrinking as if it were not He 
               Who ruled, and breathed, and ran in them, 
               He hides in an individual will —
                    In a new self buries Him, 
               Deeply veiled he carries still 
                    His else too awful diadem!

               Ye who teach and ye who reign
               Over throbbing heart and busy brain,
Of the Great King's younger sons, with brief control, 
               Watchers of Childhood's golden time, 
               Lords of the green years' tender prime,
Guides of the sacred will and growing soul!—
               Ye shall rule as God rules, when ye wear 
               The crown permitted for awhile, 
               Then to pass to the princely heir.
     Stronger and freer with each new year
     Shall the subject souls rise out of your sphere, 
               Self-poised to do and dare;
               With hearts to smile on any fate
               As they swell with conscious power elate, 
               And a silent feeling of strength to wing 
                    Their spirit flight to the utmost lair 
               Of being and thought; while the vigorous fling 
                    Of their straining arms, and their vans free swing,
               May broaden their bosoms to fit the heave 
                    Of gallant hearts, and put such nerve 
                    In their growing frames they will never swerve, 
               Nor to right or left their courses leave, 
               Though plying their plumes in the stormiest van 
               Of the tempests that darken the heavens from man.

               Little by little to feel the sway 
               Of your manhood yield and melt away;
               Little by little to feel the soul
               Rising erect with its self-control,
               With your guarding arm kept viewless, back, 
               The broad world clear before his track, 
               And the sceptre that shadows your wise command 
                    So deftly swayed and shown,
               That it seems a staff in his playful hand
                    More than a rod in your own,—
               So led out as if unled,
                    Growing Childhood shall be blest,
               All its simple yearnings fed, 
                    All its trueness unrepressed, 
               So the new Man shall be bred, 
                    And the new World, bridal dressed,
               Welcome her spouse, a pure immortal guest!