Page:Songs, Legends, and Ballads.djvu/33

Rh But the human blocks will not lie as still
 * As the dull foundation-stones,

But will rise, like a sea, with an awful will,
 * And ingulf the golden thrones;

For the days are gone when a special race
 * Took the place of the gilded vane;

And the merit that mounts to the highest place
 * Must have bone and sinew and brain.

Let the cant of "the march of mind" be heard,
 * Of the time to come, when man

Shall lose the mark of his brawn and beard
 * In the future's levelling plan:

'Tis the dream of a mind effeminate,
 * The whine for an easy crown;

There is no meed for the good and great
 * In the weakling's levelling down.

A nation's boast is a nation's bone,
 * As well as its might of mind;

And the culture of either of these alone
 * Is the doom of a nation signed.