VI
While we are drilled in error, we are lost Alike to truth and usefulness.We think We are great warriors now, and we can brag Like Titans; but the world is growing young, And we, the fools of time, are growing with it: --We do not fight to-day, we only die;
We are too proud of death, and too ashamed Of God, to know enough to be alive.
VII
There is one battle-field whereon we fall Triumphant and unconquered; but, alas!
We are too fleshly fearful of ourselves To fight there till our days are whirled and blurred By sorrow, and the ministering wheels Of anguish take us eastward, where the clouds Of human gloom are lost against the gleam That shines on Thought's impenetrable mail.
VIII
When we shall hear no more the cradle-songs Of ages -- when the timeless hymns of Love Defeat them and outsound them -- we shall know The rapture of that large release which all Right science comprehends; and we shall read, With unoppressed and unoffended eyes, That record of All-Soul whereon God writes In everlasting runes the truth of Him.