me,
And never coin a farthing of their own.
Wise men there are--for owls are counted wise--
Who love to leave the lamp-lit paths behind,
And chase the shapeless shadow of a doubt.
Too wise to learn, too wise to see the truth,
E'en though it glow and sparkle like a gem
On God's outstretched forefinger for all time.
These have one argument, and only one,
For good or evil, earth or jeweled heaven--
The olden, owlish argument of doubt.
Ah, he alone is wise who ever stands
Armed _cap-a-pie_ with God's eternal truth.
Where _Grex_ is _Rex_ God help the hapless land.
The yelping curs that bay the rising moon
Are not more clamorous, and the fitful winds
Not more inconstant. List the croaking frogs
That raise their heads in fen or stagnant pool,
Shouting at eve their wisdom from the mud.
Beside the braying, bleating, bellowing mob,
Their jarring discords are sweet harmony.
The headless herd are but a noise of wind;
Sometimes, alas, the wild tornado's roar.
As full of freaks as curs are full of fleas,
Like gnats they swarm, like flies they buzz and breed.
Thought works in silence: Wisdom stops to think.
No ass so obstinate as ignorance.
Oft as they seize the ship of state, behold--
Overboard goes all ballast and they crowd
To blast or breeze or hurricane full sail,
Each dunce a pilot and a captain too.
How often cross-eyed Justice hits amiss!
Doomed by Athenian mobs to banishment,
See Aristides leave the land he saved:
Wisdom his fault and justice his offense.
See Caesar crowned a god and Tully slain;
See Paris red with riot and noble blood,
A king beheaded and a monster throned,--
King Drone, flat fool that weather-cocked all winds,
Gulped gall and vinegar and smacked it wine,
Wig-wagged his way from gilded _Oeil de Boeuf_
Through mob and maelstrom to the guillotine.
Chateaus up-blazing torch the doom of France,
While human wolves howl ruin round their walls.
Contention hisses from a million mouths,
And from ten thousand muttering craters smokes
The smell of sulphur. Gaul becomes a ghoul;
While _Parlez-Tous_ in hot palaver holds
Hubbub _ad_ Bedlam--Pandemonium thriced.
There, voices drowning voice with frantic cries,
Discord demented flaps her ruffled wings
And shrieks delirium to her screeching brood.
Sneer-lipped, hawk-eyed, wolf-tongued oraculars--
Wise-wigs, Girondins, frothing Jacobins--
Reason to madness run, tongues venom-tanged--
Howl chaos all with one united throat.
Maelstrom of madness, lazar-howled,