Page:Songs, Legends, and Ballads.djvu/33

But the human blocks will not lie as still
As the dull foundation-stones,
But will rise, like a sea, with an awful will,
And ingulf the golden thrones;
For the days are gone when a special race
Took the place of the gilded vane;
And the merit that mounts to the highest place
Must have bone and sinew and brain.

Let the cant of "the march of mind" be heard,
Of the time to come, when man
Shall lose the mark of his brawn and beard
In the future's levelling plan:
'Tis the dream of a mind effeminate,
The whine for an easy crown;
There is no meed for the good and great
In the weakling's levelling down.

A nation's boast is a nation's bone,
As well as its might of mind;
And the culture of either of these alone
Is the doom of a nation signed.