Removed from his sires by long stretch of years,
Yet so closely virtued, to their wisdom bred,
Their bloods long wasted, but which then ran red,
Their dogged valors, which had now been fears,
Are still his coaches and untimely peers,
Sit at his board, carve at the ghostly spread,
Flout tame the sweeter wine, for which the ages bled,
And cups paid bitter down in price of tears,
As, rising to his call, they quench their eerie fast,
And toast, in heady measures of a wormy Old,
'Gainst newer truths that mock their pledgescold,
This, their own grim shadow from a weary past.
And yet, if were their eyes awake, should they not grow
To keener vision, should a cuter ear
Not catch Time's footfall, nor so dare the Law,
Which, how so trespass do impugn it here--
As if its charter on mere probate ran--
Stars yet Time's reaches since his maze began,
Illumes the pathway of the utmost sphere:
Yon law of Free, within whose widening groove,
For franker answer 'tward the Life, 'tward all--
Some response more worthy of the conscious soul--
God, man, and thing, and Nations move?
Ay; should they not wonder at that slow-to-learn will,
Heir to large occasions, but to spurn them still?