Poems

Greatness

The following sonnets must be regarded as experiments,
so far as the arrangement of the rhymes is concerned.

Charles Harpur


THAT man is truly great, and he alone
        Who venerates, of present things or past
The absolute only,—is the liege of none
        Save God and truth; who, awed not by this vast
        And shadowy scheme of life, but anchored fast
In love, and sitting central like the sun,
So gives his mental beams to pierce and run
        Through all its secrets while his days may last.
While thus progressive, little faith has he
        For mysteries, till, sounding them, he hear
The gathered tones of their stirred depths agree
        With that religious harmony severe,
        Which ever anthems to his spirit’s ear
The hallowing presence of the Deity.


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