se who follow nature when the track
Is finer than a hair--those who can cleave
The subtile and combined elements
That form a drop of water--those can shrink
From the more holy alchemy enjoin'd,
Call'd for by that disgust the heart conceives
At the usurping empire of pretence;
At all those useless and disgraceful chains,
Which tie us down, and imp with aptest wings,
Falsehood and selfishness, who ought to creep
In their own reptile slime, and dart away
When eyes perceiv'd their presence. Oh! could those
Adventure in too perilous a path,
If without other guide than the bright stars,
The love of what is lofty and divine,
Or the desire of gaining for mankind,
Now fettered and held down to poison'd food,
Its unpolluted birth-right
--they dared on,
Plunging at once into untravelled realms,
And bringing, as the harvest of their toil,
Arms which will make each potent talisman,
Each charm, and spell, and dire enchantment sink
In endless infamy--without a hope
To trick their bloated, and their wither'd limbs,
In any Proteus vestment of disguise,
Again to awe and ruinate the world.

Oh! my dear brother, little did I think
These lines would be prophetic, yet to me
They seem so; for I since have felt deep woe,
And passed through seas of anguish to attain
A view of mysteries wonderful and sad--
Since they are rivetted, through every clime,
With shame, and guilt, and wretchedness on all
That bear what only is the _curse_ of life,
Whilst they remain, which have confronted time,
Wearing the semblance, sporting with the names
Of truth and valour, liberty and God,
Successfully, through each recorded age,
But yet _may_ fall, and will, I trust and hope!

FINIS.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Vignettes in Verse, by Matilda Betham

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