XX

From all these crowded faces, all alive,—

Eyes, of their own lids flashing themselves bare,—

      And brows that with a mobile life contrive

A deeper shadow,—may we no wise dare

      To point a finger out, and touch a man,

And cry "this is the leader." What, all these!—

      Broad heads, black eyes,—yet not a soul that ran

From God down with a message? All, to please

      The donna waving measures with her fan,

And not the judgment-angel on his knees—

      The trumpet just an inch off from his lips—

Who when he breathes next, will put out the sun?

      Yet mankind's self were foundered in eclipse,

If lacking, with a great work to be done,

      A doer. No, the earth already dips

Back into light—a better day's begun—

      And soon this doer, teacher, will stand plain,

And build the golden pipes and synthesize

      This people-organ for a holy strain:

And we who hope thus, still in all these eyes,

      Go sounding for the deep look which shall drain

Suffused thought into channelled enterprise!

      Where is the teacher? What now may he do,

Who shall do greatly? Doth he gird his waist

With a monk's rope, like Luther? or pursue

The goat, like Tell? or dry his nets in haste,

      Like Masaniello when the sky was blue?

Keep house like any peasant, with inlaced,

      Bare, brawny arms about his favourite child,

And meditative looks beyond the door.—

      (But not to mark the kidling's teeth have filed

The green shoots of his vine which last year bore

      Full twenty bunches;) or, on triple-piled

Throne-velvets, shall we see him bless the poor.

      Like any Pontiff, in the Poorest's name,—

While the tiara holds itself aslope

      Upon his steady brows, which, all the same,

Bend mildly to permit the people's hope?