Acquiescent

                              I.
Earth slips away beneath my crippled feet
     Roaring along the strong and fortunate,
     As a proud chariot with its living freight;
Crushing the helpless in the crowded street,
It leaves the struggling thousands in defeat,
     Strewn by the wayside, poor, disconsolate,
     Mutely to die, or curse their evil fate
With bitter words the hollow heavens repent.
I lonely lingering hear their smothered cries
     That leave the chorus of triumphal song,
Rolled up in thunders to the shuddering skies,—
     But have no breath to bear the strain along,
Of wail or victory! A deserted waif
I trust the invisible Good in whom all lives are safe!

                              II.
My voice hath gone into the vibrant air
     With some faint utterance of the Eternal word,
     And now is hushed, or murmurs on unheard,
But breathes no syllable of the world’s despair
Nor feeblest echo of the trumpet blare
     Of crowned Pretence with which the heavens are stirred,
     If I have pity for the trampled herd
With whom I suffer, not for me my prayer;
If in my uncomplaining helplessness
     I see true souled Endeavor win its prize,
I share the gladness of a just success
     And o’er its failure give the pitying signs
That honest pride refuses to my own;
     The arrows aimed at me shall smite my breast alone.

                              III.
What boots the echo if the voice be true?
     If the right word be spoken vain indeed
     Were common fames prolonged huzzas to feed
The spirit’s hunger, that forever new,
?? years to some serener blue
     Of far heaven unattained, its vital need;
     If now the swarming millions give no heed
To the live Prophet, the anointed Few
Shall guard his vision, and what saving worth
     Is in his word, like golden seed, shall grow
To bud and bloom, and bless the unwilling Earth,
     When lips that spoke it are but dust below!
Then let the world whirl from me through the skies,
I am content withal;—the mortal, only, dies.

                              IV.
Poor Earth shall have no wrong without a tongue,
     No age without a Prophet; it may be
     In some lone island of the churlish sea,
Or dim ravine with forests overhung,
Or where sweat labor hands with sinews wrung
     Amid the clash of iron ??
     A voice shall rise to make the nations free,
And pure as when the fabled earth was young.
It is enough if in the choral song
     Of Man redeemed, my voice, though seeming lost,—
Have swelled the triumph over sceptered wrong,
     And cheer for struggling virtue tempest-tos’d
To have been a sharer in these stormy days,
With no distinctive fame, were yet an ample praise!