The shackled feet of centuries cannot keep
Pace yet with feet that have outstripped the world.
For the maimed even the riven way is steep.
I am so strange to greatness, I am hurled
Unsceptred to my glory! I am now
Almost what you have called me, as things take
The colour of names men give them; as things grow
Fierce if dubbed fierce, and weak if branded weak,
And fools if given no name but foolishness.
I have been branded fool in life and art,--
Always a little lower, always the less,
Until the intolerable prompting has grown part
Of all I do; my labouring brain and heart
By that self-doubt are shadowed and undone.
Let me walk long beside you in the sun,
Race, wrestle with you, grow wise and swift and strong.
For I shall speak but foolish words at first
Who was hindered of wisdom since the world began.
I shall blunder and be so wayward who was nursed
On fear and folly by the laws of man.