Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Once in a golden hour
I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower,
The people said, a weed.
For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
I fain would follow love, if that could be;
I needs must follow death, who calls for me;
Call and I follow, I follow! let me die.
No sword
Of wrath her right arm whirl'd,
But one poor poet's scroll, and with his word
She shook the world.
There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.
Never, oh! never, nothing will die;
The stream flows,
The wind blows,
The cloud fleets,
The heart beats,
Nothing will die.
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell.
My religious beliefs also defied convention, leaning towards agnosticism and pandeism.
I wither slowly in thine arms; here at the quiet limit of the world, a white hair'd shadow roaming like a dream.
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As though to breathe were life.
He makes no friends who never made a foe.
O love, O fire! once he drew
With one long kiss my whole soul through
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.
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