O thou, of beauty[8], loveliest form and phase! Kindler and keeper of the quenchless flame! Partner and peer of human majesty! Sharing with him life's dual sovereignty, 120 Well canst thou wait for thrones and diadems. Queen of the future, Eve of coming worlds, Mother of spirits that shall people stars, And hail thee empress of a universe!
No more I deemed of crowning consequence, That mortal clay to mortal eye should shine; That human mites should shout and sing in praise Each of the other's midget mightiness-- A molecule, by atoms glorified!
Apple of ashes[9] to the longing lip! 130 Brine to the burning throat and thirsting soul! Phantom, delusion, misty ghost of fame! Voidest and vainest of all vanities!
"Be not beguiled!" A vibrant thunder note, Pealing from clouds that canopied my life, The warning, lightning-winged to purify, Up-kindling all the summits of the soul. "Be not beguiled; not what men think and say, But what God sees and knows, is what avails.
"Who knoweth aught, unknowing of the all? 140 Unknowing all, who knoweth perfectly 'Twixt small and great, 'twixt failure and success, 'Twixt heights of glory and the gulfs of shame? What cares eternity for time's decrees? Defeat hath oft deserved the conqueror's crown; Dishonor worn the wreath of victory.
"Greatness--is it to loom 'mid glittering show? Goes power but hand in hand with prominence? Largeness or littleness, or high or low, Has but to breathe, and straightway he is known. 150 What speech conceals, the spirit manifests.
"Fame, place, and title find a fitting use, And rightfully demand all reverence due. But envy not the empty lot of him Who, winning without merit, wins in vain.
"Greatness, true greatness, mightiness of mind, And greater greatness, grandeur of the soul, Tell but one tale--capacity, not place; Capacity, whose sire, experience, Whose ancestors, innate intelligence, 160 Original, inborn nobility, As oft in hut as mansion have their home.
"'Tis not the crowning that creates the king. Man's proper place where God hath need of him.
"Naught can be vain that leadeth unto light; Struggle and stress, not plaudit, maketh strong; Victor and vanquished equally may win[10], Climbing far heights, where fame, eternal fame, White as the gleaming cloak of Arctic hills, Rests as a mantle, fadeless, faultless, pure, 170 On loftiest lives, whose snowy peaks, sun-crowned, Receive but to dispense their blessedness.