FATE

I know not how I know,

And yet I know.

I do not plan to go,

And yet I go.

There is some dim force propelling,

Gently guiding and compelling,

And a faint voice ever telling

“This is so.”

The path is rough and black —

Dark as night —

And there lies a fairer track

In the light.

Yet I may not shirk or shrink,

For I feel the hands that link

As they guide me on the brink

Of the Height.

Bigots blame me in their wrath.

Let them blame!

Praise or blame, the fated path

Is the same.

If I droop upon my mission,

There is still that saving vision,

Iridescent and Elysian,

Tipped in flame.

It was granted me to stand

By my dead.

I have felt the vanished hand

On my head,

On my brow the vanished lips,

And I know that Death's eclipse

Is a floating veil that slips,

Or is shed.

When I heard thy well-known voice,

Son of mine,

Should I silently rejoice,

Or incline

To strike harder as a fighter,

That the heavy might be lighter,

And the gloomy might be brighter

At the sign?

Great Guide, I ask you still,

“Wherefore I?”

But if it be thy will

That I try,

Trace my pathway among men,

Show me how to strike, and when,

Take me to the fight — and then,

Oh, be nigh!