Page:May-day and other pieces, Emerson, 1867.djvu/98

86 Stayed on his subtile thought,

Shuts his sense on toys of time,

To vacant bosoms brought.

But best befriended of the God

He who, in evil times,

Warned by an inward voice,

Heeds not the darkness and the dread,

Biding by his rule and choice,

Feeling only the fiery thread

Leading over heroic ground,

Walled with mortal terror round,

To the aim which him allures,

And the sweet heaven his deed secures.

Stainless soldier on the walls,

Knowing this,—and knows no more,—

Whoever fights, whoever falls,

Justice conquers evermore,

Justice after as before,—