Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/73

Rh But evil, that doth cling to all things here,

O'ercame that triumph. Yet, come all again,

I'll say it o'er; the dearest word of men,

The first to seal the poet's virgin vow,

The last to wing the patriot's breath to heaven,

Is Liberty; it hath the heart's touch in it,

The pang of sacred deaths, the onward reach

Of old heroic lives; O, richly charged—

With virtue's spoils and dear-prized honor heaped,

And ventures of such make their precious worth

Should purchase heaven, if any ransom's weight

Levelled the beam of that great counterpoise

With even scales aloft; but 't is not so.

In time's dark field must mortal valor fight

And with the viewless future cope on earth.

Yet the good cause plants virtue in the act;

'T is blessed; and so, and most through liberty,

The peopled earth is made the place of souls;

And sooner shall the little life of man

Cease to be heaven's prologue than his lips

Shall be untreasured of the word of grace

That chased them half-divine. Such thoughts were mine

Though captived-chained unto the Roman wall,

Where none but priests are free. O, them I curse,