Page:The poems of George Eliot (Crowell, 1884).djvu/421

 Is visited thenceforth by tender hearts

Whose eyes keep watch about the prison walls.

A foolish, nay, a wicked paradox!

For purest pity is the eye of love

Melting at sight of sorrow; and to grieve

Because it sees no sorrow, shows a love

Warped from its truer nature, turned to love

Of merest habit, like the miser's greed.

But I am Colin still: my prejudice

Is for the flavor of my daily food.

Not that I doubt the world is growing still

As once it grew from Chaos and from Night;

Or have a soul too shrunken for the hope

Which dawned in human breasts, a double morn,

With earliest watchings of the rising light

Chasing the darkness; and through many an age

Has raised the vision of a future time

That stands an Angel with a face all mild

Spearing the demon. I too rest in faith

That man's perfection is the crowning flower,

Toward which the urgent sap in life's great tree

Is pressing—seen in puny blossoms now.

But in the world's great morrows to expand

With broadest petal and with deepest glow.

Yet, see the patched and plodding citizen

Waiting upon the pavement with the throng

While some victorious world-hero makes

Triumphal entry, and the peal of shouts

And flash of faces 'neath uplifted hats

Run like a storm of joy along the streets!

He says, "God bless him!" almost with a sob,

As the great hero passes; he is glad

The world holds mighty men and mighty deeds;

The music stirs his pulses like strong wine,