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the torrent.
Thou martyr! for the world it knows thee not,
Scoffs at thee, scorns thee, rails and laughs and sneers;
With barbed darts embitters thy hard lot,
As oft of old to prophets and to seeres;
With its bleared sight the veil it cannot pierce,
And see the future rise upon the days!
Thus persecutes with hatred blind and fierce,
And, 'stead of crowns plucked from the living bays,
It binds thy brows with thorns thorns that will turn to rays!
Scoffs at thee, scorns thee, rails and laughs and sneers;
With barbed darts embitters thy hard lot,
As oft of old to prophets and to seeres;
With its bleared sight the veil it cannot pierce,
And see the future rise upon the days!
Thus persecutes with hatred blind and fierce,
And, 'stead of crowns plucked from the living bays,
It binds thy brows with thorns thorns that will turn to rays!
Still from thy heart's vast deeps the shouts arise,
And swell along, a rushing lava stream—
A lava stream of burning melodies,
Shaking thy brethren from a sluggish dream,
To strive and be the thing they fain would seem;
With thee, false custom's cramping bounds to leap,
To trust the rising of the virgin beam,
And at thy call through death and danger sweep
Towards the free, the pure, the renovating deep.
And swell along, a rushing lava stream—
A lava stream of burning melodies,
Shaking thy brethren from a sluggish dream,
To strive and be the thing they fain would seem;
With thee, false custom's cramping bounds to leap,
To trust the rising of the virgin beam,
And at thy call through death and danger sweep
Towards the free, the pure, the renovating deep.
