Crest altering still to gulf
And gulf to crest
In endless chace,
That leaves the tossing water anchor’d in its place! 
Ah, well does he who does but stand aside,
Sans hope or fear,
And marks the crest and gulf in station sink and rear,
And prophesies ’gainst trust in such a tide: 
For he sometimes is prophet, heavenly taught,
Whose message is that he sees only nought. 
   Nathless, discern’d may be,
By listeners at the doors of destiny,
The fly-wheel swift and still
Of God’s incessant will,
Mighty to keep in bound, tho’ powerless to quell,
The amorous and vehement drift of man’s herd to hell.

XX.  ‘LET BE!’

Ah, yes; we tell the good and evil trees
By fruits:  But how tell these? 
Who does not know
That good and ill
Are done in secret still,
And that which shews is verily but show! 
How high of heart is one, and one how sweet of mood: 
But not all height is holiness,
Nor every sweetness good;
And grace will sometimes lurk where who could guess? 
The Critic of his kind,
Dealing to each his share,
With easy humour, hard to bear,
May not impossibly have in him shrined,
As in a gossamer globe or thickly padded pod,
Some small seed dear to God. 
Haply yon wretch, so famous for his falls,
Got them beneath the Devil-defended walls
Of some high Virtue he had vow’d to win;
And that which you and I
Call his besetting sin
Is but the fume of his peculiar fire
Of inmost contrary desire,
And means wild willingness for her to die,
Dash’d with despondence of her favour sweet;
He fiercer fighting, in his worst defeat,
Than I or you,
That only courteous greet
Where he does hotly woo,
Did ever fight, in our best victory. 
Another is mistook
Through his deceitful likeness to his look! 
Let be, let be: 
Why should I clear myself, why answer thou for me? 
That shaft of slander shot
Miss’d only the right blot. 
I see the shame
They cannot see: 
’Tis very just they blame
The thing that’s not.

XXI.  ‘FAINT YET PURSUING.’

Heroic Good, target for which the young
Dream in their dreams that every bow is strung,
And, missing, sigh
Unfruitful, or as disbelievers die,
Thee having miss’d, I will not so revolt,
But lowlier shoot my bolt,
And lowlier still, if still I may not reach,
And my proud stomach teach
That less than highest is good, and may be high. 
An even walk in life’s uneven way,
Though to have dreamt of flight and not to fly
Be strange and sad,
Is not a boon that’s given to all who pray. 
If this I had
I’d envy none! 
Nay, trod I straight for one
Year, month or week,
Should Heaven withdraw, and Satan me amerce
Of power and joy, still would I seek
Another victory with a like reverse;