V

  Not from the strife itself to set thee free,
  But more to nerve—­doth Victory
    Wave her rich garland from the Ideal clime. 
  Whate’er thy wish, the Earth has no repose—­
  Life still must drag thee onward as it flows,
    Whirling thee down the dancing surge of Time. 
  But when the courage sinks beneath the dull
    Sense of its narrow limits—­on the soul,
  Bright from the hill-tops of the Beautiful,
    Bursts the attained goal!

  VI

  If worth thy while the glory and the strife
  Which fire the lists of Actual Life—­
    The ardent rush to fortune or to fame,
  In the hot field where Strength and Valor are,
  And rolls the whirling thunder of the car,
    And the world, breathless, eyes the glorious game—­
  Then dare and strive—­the prize can but belong
    To him whose valor o’er his tribe prevails;
  In life the victory only crowns the strong—­
    He who is feeble fails.

  VII

  But Life, whose source, by crags around it pil’d,
  Chafed while confin’d, foams fierce and wild,
    Glides soft and smooth when once its streams expand,
  When its waves, glassing in their silver play,
  Aurora blent with Hesper’s milder ray,
    Gain the Still BEAUTIFUL—­that Shadow-Land! 
  Here, contest grows but interchange of Love;
    All curb is but the bondage of the Grace;
  Gone is each foe,—­Peace folds her wings above
    Her native dwelling-place.

  VIII

  When, through dead stone to breathe a soul of light,
  With the dull matter to unite
    The kindling genius, some great sculptor glows;
  Behold him straining every nerve intent—­
  Behold how, o’er the subject element,
    The stately THOUGHT its march laborious goes! 
  For never, save to Toil untiring, spoke
    The unwilling Truth from her mysterious well—­
  The statue only to the chisel’s stroke
    Wakes from its marble cell.

  IX

  But onward to the Sphere of Beauty—­go
  Onward, O Child of Art! and, lo,
    Out of the matter which thy pains control
  The Statue springs!—­not as with labor wrung
  From the hard block, but as from Nothing sprung—­
    Airy and light—­the offspring of the soul! 
  The pangs, the cares, the weary toils it cost
    Leave not a trace when once the work is done—­
  The Artist’s human frailty merged and lost
    In Art’s great victory won!

  X

  If human Sin confronts the rigid law
  Of perfect Truth and Virtue, awe
    Seizes and saddens thee to see how far
  Beyond thy reach, Perfection;—­if we test
  By the Ideal of the Good, the best,
    How mean our efforts and our actions are! 
  This space between the Ideal of man’s soul
    And man’s achievement, who hath ever past? 
  An ocean spreads between us and that goal
    Where anchor ne’er was cast!