Classic Poem

As one upon no mission bent
I came—no sacerdotal cause
Save just to live by nature's laws,
And her direct arbitrament.
To hold in awe; to please myself,
And thus the world a service do;
To drive devoid the greed of pelf,
The product of my labor mine.
To crouch to none, to crave no sway,
But inward from the leagues of blue
To drink the gladness of the lovely day,
To dwell in peace, and bear no fruitless pain.

But I—who love the wood and stream,
The winning voice of Day and Night,
And Man and Beast, and Art and Song;
And fain would wander in a dream
Of life and love, and seek delight
In gentle woods, forgetting wrong,
Musing o'er mellow sunsets lost
In contemplation's misty deep—
I, who would ever seek to find
The mystery that lurks behind
Fair nature's apparition, must
Into this bitter warfare leap,
The unaccustomed steel upon me bind
And, facing Hell, give biting thrust for thrust.