* * * * *
_HOPE_.
Men talk with their lips and dream with their soul
Of better days hitherward pacing;
To a happy, a glorious, golden goal
See them go running and chasing!
The world grows old and to youth returns,
But still for the Better man's bosom burns.
It is Hope leads him into life and its light;
She haunts the little one merry;
The youth is inspired by her magic might;
Her the graybeard cannot bury:
When he finds at the grave his ended scope,
On the grave itself he planteth Hope.
She was never begotten in Folly's brain,
An empty illusion, to flatter;
In the Heart she cries, aloud and plain:
We are born to something better!
And that which the inner voice doth say
The hoping spirit will not betray.
_THE WORDS OF FAITH_.
Three words I will tell you, of meaning full:
The lips of the many shout them;
Yet were they born of no sect or school,
The heart only knows about them:
That man is of everything worth bereft
Who in those three words has no faith left:
_Man_ is born free--and is free alway
Even were he born in fetters!
Let not the mob's cry lead you astray,
Or the misdeeds of frantic upsetters:
Fear not the slave when he breaks his bands;
Fear nothing from any free man's hands.
And _Virtue_--it is no empty sound;
That a man can obey her, no folly;
Even if he stumble all over the ground
He yet can follow the Holy;
And what never wisdom of wise man knew
A child-like spirit can simply do.
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