Libra

A starry Balance o'er the void hangs far
     Too high to tremble at the crash and noise 
     Of work that builds, and fury that destroys;
Two hemispheres for scales the level bar
Bears, with thick Night and Morning's golden star 
     In what might seem eternal equipoise;
     Where worlds may fling their sorrows and their joys
Virtues and crimes, nor see a moment's jar!
Yet slowly, slowly through the awful space,
     Up goes the outweighed darkness, and new day 
Pours through the realm of ancient Night to chase 
     Her phantoms off before its whitening ray;
So, spark by spark, through all the centuries 
The burning solstice fires the black abyss.

Who count that Little is not Much forget 
     The atomic poise of that supernal Beam
     Whereby God weighs the tiniest motes that gleam 
In shimmering noon, as the grand globes he set 
On outmost Heaven's beleaguered parapet,
     Stormed by the outer darkness! Crags that seem 
     Steel-rooted to the centre; cliffs ye deem 
Eternal as their Builder's throne, have yet 
Gone down in smoke and thunder to the vale, 
     Stirred by the echo of a tread, a breath,
A voice among the mountains! The least wail
     From man to God is mightier than death:
And where the Bastiles of oppression frown, 
A child's expiring sob may hurl them down.

All hours are hours of fate, and every day
     Dawns red the Day of Judgment. Not a deed
     But from our hand falls vital, a ripe seed 
Of recompense; and our least thought we lay 
Upon the vibrant scale, or yea or nay, 
     Of some tremendous Crisis that may need 
     But this to throw its beam with headlong speed, 
To what down-crashing God alone can say.
The seed we sow, that only shall we reap, 
     Love for our love, and out of stinging hate
The nettle Retribution: Never sleep
     The eyes of Justice nor the hands of Fate.
Though Crime on tiptoe seek her midnight bed,
The tramp of Doom is echo of her tread!