Page:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v5.djvu/458

416 Not wide as are my dreams,

Nor rich as is this hour.

What can ye give which I have not?

What can ye take which I have got?

Can ye defend the dangerless?

Can ye inherit nakedness?

To all true wants Time's ear is deaf,

Penurious states lend no relief

Out of their pelf:

But a free soul—thank God—

Can help itself.

Be sure your fate

Doth keep apart its state,

Not linked with any band,

Even the noblest of the land;

In tented fields with cloth of gold

No place doth hold,

But is more chivalrous than they are,

And sigheth for a nobler war;

A finer strain its trumpet sings,

A brighter gleam its armor flings.

The life that I aspire to live

No man proposeth me;

No trade upon the street

Wears its emblazonry.