Man's dominion, war and labour;
Might to right the Statute gave ;
Laws are in the Scythian's sabre;

And the Persian sinks a slave !1
Peace and Meekness grimly routing,
Prowls the War-lust, rude and wild;
Eris rages, hoarsely shouting,

Where the vanish'd Graces smiled.

But Woman her throne by persuasion defends,
O'er the realm of the Manners her sceptre extends ;
Our strength she subdues to her will.

All forces at war with each other she charms,
The discord she quenches, the hate she disarms;
Ever-binding-what flies from her still!

1 The Scythian is here introduced as the emblem of rude force; and the Persian, of the servility produced by the conquest of force.

M

THE WORDS OF BELIEF.

THREE Words will I name thee-around and about
From the lip to the lip, full of meaning, they flee;
But they had not their birth in the being without,
And the heart, not the lip, must their oracle be!
And all worth n the man shall for ever be o'er
When in those Three Words he believes no more.

Man is free! by his chart of creation is free,
Though born amid fetters-still free-born the same.
Whatever the roar of the rabble may be-

Whatever the frantic misuse of the claim

It is not the freeman whose strength should appal, 'Tis the wrath of the slave when he bursts from his thrall!1

1 The construction in these lines is obscure, from a brevity which is borrowed from the Latin. It has been generally translated, "Fear not the slave when," &c., and so I translated it myself in the first edition. But, on careful examination, the meaning seems just the contrary :

"Vor dem Sklaven, wenn er die Kette bricht,

Vor dem freien Menschen erzittert nicht."—i. e.,

"Erzittert vor dem Sklaven wenn er die Kette bricht;-nicht vor dem freien Menschen."

And VIRTUE is more than a shade or a sound,

And Man may her voice, in this being, obey; And though ever he slip on the stony ground,

Yet ever again to the godlike way,

To the science of Good though the Wise may be blind,
Yet the practice is plain to the childlike mind.1

And high over space, over Time, is a God,

A will never rocking, like Man's, to and fro; A thought that abides, though unseen the abode, Inweaving with life its creations below;

Changing and shifting the All we inherit,

But changeless through all One Immutable Spirit!

Hold fast the Three Words of Belief-though about
From the lip to the lip, full of meaning, they flee;
Yet they take not their birth from the being without—
But a voice from within must their oracle be;
And never all worth in the Man can be o'er,
Till in those Three Words he believes no more.

1 So I conceive to be the true, though somewhat subtle, meaning of the lines in the original.

THE WORDS OF BELIEF.

THREE Words will I name thee-around and about
From the lip to the lip, full of meaning, they flee;
But they had not their birth in the being without,
And the heart, not the lip, must their oracle be!
And all worth n the man shall for ever be o'er
When in those Three Words he believes no more.

Man is free! by his chart of creation is free,
Though born amid fetters-still free-born the same.
Whatever the roar of the rabble may be-

Whatever the frantic misuse of the claim

It is not the freeman whose strength should appal, "Tis the wrath of the slave when he bursts from his thrall !1

1 The construction in these lines is obscure, from a brevity which is borrowed from the Latin. It has been generally translated, "Fear not the slave when," &c., and so I translated it myself in the first edition. But, on careful examination, the meaning seems just the contrary :

"Vor dem Sklaven, wenn er die Kette bricht,

Vor dem freien Menschen erzittert nicht."—i. e.,

"Erzittert vor dem Sklaven wenn er die Kette bricht;-nicht vor dem freien Menschen."