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[84] True as the knights of story,
Sir Lancelot and his peers,
Brave in his calm endurance
As they in tilt of spears.
As waves in stillest waters,
As stars in noonday skies,
All that wakes to noble action
In his noon of calmness lies.
Wherever outraged Nature
Asks word or action brave,
Wherever struggles labor,
Wherever groans a slave,—
Wherever rise the peoples,
Wherever sinks a throne,
The throbbing heart of Freedom finds
An answer in his own.
Knight of a better era,
Without reproach or fear!
Said I not well that Bayards
And Sidneys still are here? “
1853.
Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and company, 1888-89.
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