TO THE PROPHETIC SOUL

What are these bustlers at the gate

Of now or yesterday,

These playthings in the hand of Fate,

That pass, and point no way;

These clinging bubbles whose mock fires

For ever dance and gleam,

Vain foam that gathers and expires

Upon the world's dark stream;

These gropers betwixt right and wrong,

That seek an unknown goal,

Most ignorant, when they seem most strong;

What are they, then, O Soul,

That thou shouldst covet overmuch

A tenderer range of heart,

And yet at every dreamed-of touch

So tremulously start?

Thou with that hatred ever new

Of the world's base control,

That vision of the large and true,

That quickness of the soul;

Nay, for they are not of thy kind,

But in a rarer clay

God dowered thee with an alien mind;

Thou canst not be as they.

Be strong therefore; resume thy load,

And forward stone by stone

Go singing, though the glorious road

Thou travellest alone.