Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/245

Rh Justice after as before,—

And he who battles on her side,

God, though he were ten times slain,

Crowns him victor glorified,

Victor over death and pain.

V

the laurel which belongs

To the valiant chief who fights;

I see the wreath, I hear the songs

Lauding the Eternal Rights,

Victors over daily wrongs:

Awful victors, they misguide

Whom they will destroy,

And their coming triumph hide

In our downfall, or our joy:

They reach no term, they never sleep,

In equal strength through space abide;

Though, feigning dwarfs, they crouch and creep,

The strong they slay, the swift outstride:

Fate's grass grows rank in valley clods,

And rankly on the castled steep,—

Speak it firmly, these are gods,

All are ghosts beside.